RELATIONS: America Is Alive in 1860 and Aunt Alice Complains of Tight Shoes
Incredibly, I have found America alive in 1860 — not on a document in an archive or a record in a courthouse, but on a loose page from the Locust Ridge plantation ledger that is among the personal possessions of the man who purchased the land from my family.
While planning my upcoming research trip to Natchez, Mississippi, I reached out to Mr. William McDonald, who bought the land from my cousin Magruder in the mid-2000s. He picked up the phone on the third ring. When I explained who I was and that I was interested in seeing Locust Ridge again, he quickly agreed to show me around. “The old house is still here,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do with it.”
There were a few other things Mr. McDonald thought I might like to see. “Since you’ll be here in February, we won’t have to worry about snakes. And hunting season is over, so we can go down and look at the slave cemetery if you want. Not much more than a few tombstones and some sunken places,” he said. “And I have an old plantation ledger,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “If you want to see that.”
I could hardly believe my luck. “Yes, please,” I gasped.
Mr. McDonald went on to explain how an enslaved man named Mick used to run off all the time. “I’ll tell you something funny — that men think is funny anyway. When Mick ran off, he either went to Watson’s place on one side or Gibson’s on the other. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Well, old Mick had a woman on both places!” Mr. McDonald laughed at Mick’s sly ways. “He must have been a good hand, though. Smart. Mick ran the gin.”
Mr. McDonald recounted how he had bought the land parcel by parcel as it became available, various members of my extended family deciding to sell at various times. “We lived between Locust Ridge and the river,” he said. “I used to hunt there. Your cousin Magruder taught me how to shoot,” he said. “I have a gun collection — automatic weapons, guns from both world wars, pistols. I have your great grandfather’s Colt Dragoon Revolver.”
I didn’t ask how Mr. McDonald had come to be in possession of either the revolver or the ledger. I just hoped he would still be willing to show me both when I visited.
An hour after I hung up the phone, he texted to ask for my email address and then sent me the image below of a page from the ledger.
I was delighted to see America’s name listed on the third row. The last record I had been able to find of him was the bill of sale dated 1856. Since that time, my 2nd great grandfather, Israel Adams, had died and my great grandfather, Franklin Oliver Adams, had taken over running the plantation.
The ledger page showed that Israel Adams had made an excellent investment the day he bought America, who picked more than the 200 pounds daily expected of a good “hand.” Since 200 pounds of cotton would have fetched around $20 in 1860, America’s labor would have recouped his $1,300 purchase price in around two months. In the four years since his purchase, America would likely have picked around 240,000 pounds of cotton, equal to approximately $24,000. Once again, the historical record defined America by his ability to generate profit for someone else.
Still, I was relieved to see that after four years of enslavement and hard labor in the cotton fields, he was still alive. If he survived just a few more years — until emancipation in January, 1863 — America would be free.
Beyond proving that America had survived, the ledger page fascinated me for other reasons. There were clearly two sets of handwriting — one the ornate script that had noted the names of the enslaved and the other a spidery scrawl that seemed to have been added later. A note in the spidery cursive was written vertically in the same column as the people’s names:
Mostly good for nothing since they have got to be freed men and women
very good previous to that time.
The note suggested that the same people listed as enslaved workers in 1860 may have stayed on the land and become nominally paid laborers or sharecroppers after emancipation. Clearly whomever had written the lines would have preferred that these people remain enslaved.
What I guessed to be the same person’s handwriting filled the bottom third of the ledger page.
The Why and Wherefores or
Whos to blame
Why do we punch our feet in tight slippers or wear thin gaiters in damp weather. To please the gents to be sure. What girl has not heard her Uncle Brother male cousin or even her father speak in rapture of small feet and laugh at large ones. Can they blame us if we sacrifice comfort and even health to please them. It is neither pleasant nor comfortable to walk over rough places with tight shoes on neither is it pleasant to be pointed out as the girls with large feet. Aunt Alice
Who was Aunt Alice? Was she the same person who wrote the note evaluating the formerly enslaved people as “good for nothing”? I was not aware of a woman named Alice in my family tree. I emailed Mr. McDonald to ask if he knew who Aunt Alice was, and he sent this reply:
I have no clue, just weird the 2 different hand writings. you have me interested in looking at this stuff again, lol. Big Emily picked cotton until the day before she had a child. She was laid up the next week. I will get you a copy of this journal. I also seem to recall in another part that was reused at a later date, the hands having last names.
Again, I could hardly believe my luck.
If it is true that a part of the journal includes the last names of the formerly enslaved people, it will make researching their lives and telling their stories so much easier. I begin to think: Maybe America doesn’t want to be forgotten. Maybe he wants to be remembered for something more than his ability to pick cotton. Maybe America has a message for us.
Special thanks to Edward Adams, my newly discovered cousin, for granting me permission to title my blog RELATIONS. which is also the title of his book on his Adams and Stewart family history.
About the Author
I began researching my family’s involvement in the slave society of the South in the spring of 2021. Until that time, I knew very little about American history and nothing about genealogy. I am slowly learning about both. To read about my motivation for writing this blog, please see Why focus on this dark chapter of my family history? In addition to the essays and interviews published on Medium, I have published essays and op-eds in Salon, the Austin American Statesman, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine, among others. I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband, dog, and five chickens.
