The Final Frontiers, 1880-1930: Settling the Southern Bottomlands

203 Pages·1999·1.39 MB·English

by  John Otto

The Final Frontiers, 1880–1930
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The Final Frontiers,
1880–1930
Settling the Southern Bottomlands
John Solomon Otto
ContributionsinAmericanHistory,Number183
JonL.Wakelyn,SeriesEditor
GREENWOODPRESS
Westport,Connecticut • London
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Otto,JohnSolomon.
Thefinalfrontiers,1880–1930 : settlingthesouthernbottomlands
/ JohnSolomonOtto.
p. cm.—(ContributionsinAmericanhistory,ISSN0084–9219
; no. 183)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0–313–28963–8(alk.paper)
1. SouthernStates—History—1865–1951. 2. SouthernStates—
Environmentalconditions. 3. MississippiRiverValley—
History—1865– 4. MississippiRiverValley—Environmental
conditions. 5. Landsettlement—SouthernStates—History.
6. Cottongrowing—SouthernStates—History. 7. Alluvialplains—
MississippiRiverValley—History. I. Title. II. Series.
F215.086 1999
976'.04—dc21 99–21710
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationDataisavailable.
Copyright(cid:2)1999byJohnSolomonOtto
Allrightsreserved.Noportionofthisbookmaybe
reproduced,byanyprocessortechnique,withoutthe
expresswrittenconsentofthepublisher.
LibraryofCongressCatalogCardNumber:99–21710
ISBN:0–313–28963–8
ISSN:0084–9219
Firstpublishedin1999
GreenwoodPress,88PostRoadWest,Westport,CT06881
AnimprintofGreenwoodPublishingGroup,Inc.
www.greenwood.com
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
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PermanentPaperStandardissuedbytheNational
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of Father John G. Bals,
late rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church

Contents
Preface: Settling the Southern Bottomlands ix
1 Settling the Southern Bottomlands Before 1880 1
2 The Southern Bottomlands During the Late Nineteenth
Century (1880–1900) 15
3 The Southern Bottomlands During the Early Twentieth
Century (1900–1920) 35
4 The Southern Bottomlands During the Agricultural Recession
(1920–1930) 57
5 Settling the Southern Bottomlands After 1930 83
Appendix: Tables 113
Notes 119
Sources 151
Index 175

Preface: Settling the Southern
Bottomlands
This book examines the settlement history of the alluvial bottomlands of
thelowerMississippiRiverValleyfrom1880to1930.Althoughthealluvial
bottomlands of northwestern Mississippi, northeastern Louisiana, eastern
Arkansas,andsoutheasternMissouricontainedtherichestsoilsintheAmer-
ican South, settlers in the Southern bottomlands faced a host of environ-
mental problems, including seasonal floods, swampy soils, dense forests,
physical isolation, insect and arachnid pests, and endemic human and live-
stock diseases. Given these environmental hindrances, the alluvial bottom-
landswerestillsparselysettledfrontiersaslateas1880.Yet,duringthenext
five decades, the swamplands of the lower Mississippi River Valley had been
largely transformed into plantations, farms and towns, and the Southern
bottomlandshadbecomeoneofthemostdenselysettledareasintheAmer-
ican South.
Because this is the first history of the Southern bottomlands that focuses
onthecrucialsettlementperiodfrom1880to1930,thisbookshouldprove
useful to historians, social scientists, and general readers who are interested
in U.S. environmental, economic, and social history. It is based on primary
and secondary sources from the disciplines of history, geography,sociology,
agronomy, and ecology. These sources came from libraries and archives in
Washington, D.C., Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and else-
where. Although most of the primary and secondary sources that are cited
in the endnotes were written before 1940, I tried to cite as many recent
secondary sources as possible.
Drawingonavarietyofsources,thisbookexploresthesettlementhistory
of the Southern bottomlands—an area that has fascinated me since child-
x Preface:SettlingtheSouthernBottomlands
hoodwhenIlivedonlytwomilesfromtheArkansasRiverbottoms.During
the 1950s, my family resided in a large Arkansas county that was a micro-
cosm of the American South. One portion of the county was mountainous
terrainthatresembledAppalachia,anothersectionwasdissecteduplandthat
recalled the southeastern piedmont, and the third portion was a tract of
Arkansas River bottomlands that was an outlier of the lower Mississippi
River Valley.
My family operated a cattle farm in the upland section of the county—a
region of red clay that had once been planted in cotton and corn. Decades
of row-cropping had depleted and eroded these clay soils. When cotton
pricescollapsedintheearly1930s,thescarreduplandfieldscouldnolonger
support most of the cotton-farming families, who fled the countryside dur-
ing the Great Depression. The surviving upland farm families abandoned
cotton, and they switched to cattle, hogs, and poultry. By the 1950s, there
were no farmers raising cotton in the upland section of the county.
Although the upland farmers in the county had forsaken cotton, the bot-
tomlandfarmerswerestillplantingcottononvirtuallyalloftheclearedland.
Because the alluvial soil was too rich and too level to abandon cotton, this
crop retained its grip on the bottomlands. The bottomland towns consisted
of little more than cotton gins, general stores, churches, schools, and the
occasional honky-tonk. Beyond the bottomland towns lay the flat cotton
fields, which were dotted with houses, shacks, barns, and sheds. The cotton
fields were the property of the landowning farmers, or ‘‘landlords,’’ who
worked their acreage with White renters, Black sharecroppers, and Black
wageworkers.Althoughrenters,croppers,andworkersstilldidthe ‘‘cotton
chopping’’ (thinning and weeding) as well as the cotton picking, modern
machines were part of the cotton economy of the 1950s. Tractors plowed
the land and planted the cottonseed. In turn, crop-dusting biplanes buzzed
the cotton fields, poisoning the boll weevils and other pests. Finally, huge
bulldozers cleared the remaining timberlands in the bottoms, preparing
moreacreageforcottonfarming.Ineversawanyofthenewcotton-picking
machines during the 1950s. They were probably too expensive for the local
landlords.
Despite the presence of modern machines, bottomland cotton farming in
the county was more than one century old. The firstcottonfarmersentered
the bottomlands during the 1840s. Seduced by the fertile alluvial soils, they
planned to raise cotton, corn, and livestock in the Arkansas River bottom-
lands. Hoping to prosper, they soon confronted the realities of life in the
Southern bottomlands. The first cotton farmers faced spring floods, sodden
soils, thick forests, poor transportation, hordes of pests, and the threat of
malarialfevers.Afterenduringayearortwoofsuchconditions,manyfarm-
ers fled the bottomlands, and moved to the uplands, where they escaped
the floods and other plagues. Yet, some slave-holding farmers remained in
the bottomlands. Employing their slave laborers, these farmers built levee