Davis Bend Colony, Mississippi

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Davis Bend, Warren, Mississippi
Surnames/tags: slavery black_heritage

Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 HURRICANE 1.2 BRIERFIELD 1.3 URSINO 1.4 PALMYRA 2 Civil War Impacts 2.1 Home Colony 3 Sources

Introduction

The land known as Davis Bend was located in Warren County, Mississippi, on a thumb-like peninsula of land thrusting westward, about 20 miles south of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. Across the river, on the Louisiana side, lay the community of New Carthage to the north, and Somerset plantation due west, the home, John Perkins. (See also: Davis Bend Plantations, Warren County, Mississippi)

Lloyd's map of the lower Mississippi River from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico, No. 4, 1862, showing Davis Bend. Modified to show plantation names.

Originally comprised of eleven thousand acres of swampland, the land became the home of at least four prominent planter families and their plantations.

1. Henry Turner (the elder)
2. Colonel James Gillam Wood
3. Colonel Joseph Emory Davis
4. Jefferson Davis

HURRICANE

Hurricane Plantation
Colonel Joseph Emory Davis moved from Kentucky to Mississippi and established a law practice in Old Greenville in Jefferson County, Mississippi. By 1820, Joe Davis had moved his law practice to Natchez and became very successful. In 1824 he was able to purchase 11,000 acres south of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River which became known as Hurricane Plantation, and in the fall of 1827, he abandoned his practice in Natchez and moved his family to their new home, Hurricane Plantation, at Davis Bend.

Joe Davis maintained control of sixty-nine hundred acres along the western and southern portions of the peninsula and in 1824 had 112 slaves there under the direction of his younger brother, Isaac, preparing the land for planting. In 1827, Joseph Davis, his wife, Eliza Van Benthuysen Davis and his three daughters from previously undocumented unions settled into the plantation home. According the 1860 census, Joseph Davis owned 346 slaves and was worth more than $600,000 ($15 million in today’s dollars).

BRIERFIELD

Brierfield Plantation
Joseph gifted his brother, Jefferson Davis 1,000 acres around 1832 they built a homestead they named Brierfield Plantation. It bordered Hurricane on the north and Ursino on the east. In 1848 Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina Howell Davis, moved into their own newly built house on Brierfield Plantation.

URSINO

Ursino Plantation
Colonel James Gillam Wood was born November 14, 1770, in Prince Charles County, Maryland. Wood grew up to become a planter, a judge, and a member of the Maryland legislature. In  ? Col Wood migrated to Jefferson County, settling on the banks on 1,000 acres of land of Coles Creek. (This is the same part of the state where Samuel Emory Davis (1756-1824), the father of Joseph and Jefferson had settled around the same time and established their home called Rosemont.)

Col. Wood and Joseph Davis both served on the Jefferson County Court in Mississippi. When Joseph decided to sell off portions of Davis Bend to people he thought would make good neighbors, Col. Wood was one of those people. On February 26, 1836, he bought 1,570 acres from Joseph Davis. Then on April 12, 1836, his son Robert Young Wood bought 513 additional acres for $15,390. The property became known as Ursino Plantation and was operated for many years by Robert Y. Wood and his brother, Edgar.

In the ensuing years the relationship between the Davis brothers and the Wood brothers began to deteriorate, primarily due to the failure of the Woods to maintain their levees. By the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 Ursino was being run by overseers with both of the Wood brothers returning to Jefferson County —Robert Young Wood to Woodland Plantation and Edgar Wood to Calviton Plantation.

PALMYRA

Palmyra
The story of Palmyra predates Davis Bend. Long before the peninsula became known as Davis Bend, it was known as Palmyra. Settled by frontiersmen during territorial expansion, land claims from Spanish Land Grants and from when the land was part of the Natchez District left property in the hands of at least nine owners. In his doctoral thesis, Christopher Morris stated, "About fifteen or twenty families clustered on the banks of the Mississippi River, at a place they named Palmyra..."^[1]

1834 Survey Tract Map. Township 14 Range 1 East

Henry Turner (the elder), a Natchez merchant, initially purchased the land on Palmyra. He and his wife, Sarah Baker Turner, had substantial land holdings in several counties in Mississippi as well as Louisiana. When Henry died in 1821, his properties were divided between his children. Henry Turner's daughter, Eliza, received a share of the lands, including the property at Palmyra.

In 1822, a young John Anthony Quitman would be introduced to 15 year-old Eliza Turner through a coworker, William Griffith, who was dating her cousin. John courted Eliza and on December 24, 1824 married. Before the nuptials, Eliza's mother Sarah insisted he sign a contract making herself, Edward Turner (Eliza's uncle), and William Griffith (the lawyer friend who had introduced John to Eliza) trustees for Eliza's share of her father's still undivided estate of slaves and landholdings in Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, and elsewhere. This estate was to be divided among Eliza and her brothers George, Henry, and Fielding.

In December 1836, John and Eliza ceded Eliza’s one-fourth share of Palmyra to Eliza’s brothers Henry and Fielding Turner for $40,000. Eliza’s brother George, subsequently bought out Fielding’s share. On March 2, 1842, Quitman and Henry bought George out for $200,000. In one swoop, Quitman gained a half interest in some 5,710 acres (divided into Palmyra plantation and two islands known as “upper Palmyra Island” and “lower Palmyra island”), 230 slaves, and some 60 head of cattle.^[2]

Civil War Impacts

Mississippi became the 2nd state to secede from the Union on January 1, 1861. As it and six other southern states began to form the Confederacy, the initial impacts to Davis Bend were minimal. Already accustomed to the absentee ownership of Joseph and Jefferson Davis, management of the Hurricane and Briefield properties under Benjamin Thornton remained largely unchanged. At Ursino, Robert and Edgar Wood had returned to Jefferson County and was being run by overseers. Palmyra was equally in the hands of administrators who were not present at Davis Bend. The events unfolding on the Eastern front in Virginia and South Carolina in the opening year of the Civil War seemed distant, but a single event in Virginia would forever change the future of Davis Bend.

On May 24, 1861, three men escaped enslavement from the Confederate-occupied Norfolk County, Virginia, and seeking refuge in Fort Monroe, Virginia. According to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, the owners of the slaves were legally entitled to request their return. The Commander of Fort Monroe, Major General Benjamin Butler, took the position that he was under no obligation to return the three men; he would hold them as "contraband of war" as captured enemy property. Perhaps no one could have foreseen the impact of this act which became the genesis of thousands of slaves abandoning plantations and seeking refuge with the Union Armies as they pressed southward.

On the eastern seaboard, three fugitives increased to eleven in two days, forty-nine in four days, and in three months to nearly a thousand contrabands.^[3] In the south, slaves were "stampeding" to Union outposts to avoid removal deeper into the Confederacy with rebel owners.^[4]

In November 1862, while stationed in Tennessee, Chaplain John Eaton, Jr., of the 27th Regiment Ohio Infantry Volunteers, became involved through General Grant's orders in the immense responsibility of caring for the contrabands who flocked by thousands to the Union lines. His first foray was at Grand Junction, Tennessee, establishing the processes so refugees could be fed, clothed, housed, and put to work picking, ginning, and baling cotton and harvesting corn on abandoned plantations.^[5]

Eaton's initial efforts were focused on simply putting refugees to work harvesting crops that had been abandoned. Soon however he began to experiment with various systems of leasing abandoned plantations to the freedmen.^[6]

New Orleans fell to Admiral David Glasgow Farragut’s fleet in April 1862. The advance of Admiral Farragut’s forces had caused the Davis families to evacuate Davis Bend with his family and some slaves; however, many of the slaves at Davis Bend elected to remain behind and continue work the lands under the leadership of head slave Benjamin Thornton Montgomery. In May 1862, the Mayor of Natchez surrendered the city to Commander James Palmer of the U.S.S. Iroquois, stating the city would not resist conquest but could not guarantee Palmer's demand that the Stars and Stripes would "wave unmolested and respected" over Natchez.^[7]

Throughout 1862 Natchez remained largely unmolested except for frequent raids by Rebel guerillas. One raiding party landed at Davis Bend and took what items they wanted, and destroyed the rest, including china, dishes and books from the library. They ripped up the family portraits and burned Hurricane to the ground.^[8]

While the war raged about them, Davis Bend remained unoccupied by Union forces until 1863.

Home Colony

Home Colony web page
Davis Bend soon became the repository of many displaced freedmen. During the early months of 1863 the Bend served as the main area to which the indigent and those in need of temporary shelter or employment were sent. By March 1863, over three thousand freedmen had been gathered there.

Col. Eaton’s enumerated responsibilities as Superintendent of Contrabands covered two broad areas: the creation of “Home Farms,” which were to serve as temporary homes and work repositories for infirm, vagrant, idle and unemployed; and the supervision of contracts negotiated between planters and freedmen. Following the advice given him by General Grant in the summer of 1863, Eaton chose the land surrounding and including the Davis Bend peninsula as the site for a Home Farm, which became known as "Home Colony."

Eaton, and his assistant, Samuel Thomas, had a far more ambitious plan for Davis Bend. Where other contraband camps and home farms had provided shelter and employment for the refugees primarily by virtue of contracts private white interests, the vision for Davis Bend was to make the refugees far more autonomous.

To achieve this end Samuel Thomas divided the bend into three main farming areas, two independent small-scale operations and one communal farm. The two experiments in "self-directed labor" were set up on the non-Home Farm portions of the Joseph Davis plantation and in the area known as the Woods plantation.

On the Davis plantation 1,000 acres of land were parceled out to twenty-five farmers with land grants ranging from 10 to 150 acres; those freedmen adjudged to be the more outstanding and capable were given the largest tracts of land. Freedmen receiving larger plots were allowed to hire as many laborers as they thought necessary to assist them in planting and harvesting.

On the Woods plantation 900 acres were distributed to forty five farmers, each apparently receiving a more uniform grant of 20 acres of land. Unlike those on the larger Davis farms, the Woods farmers did not hire additional laborers but worked the land as family units. The final agricultural area was the 500 acre Home Farm. In this sector the land was subdivided but was "worked for the benefit of the whole.."^[9]

Anyone residing at the farm who was capable of work was required to contribute to the cultivation of Home Farm land. Mules, tools, and rations were given to farmers in all three areas and charged against the receipts of future crops.

In February 1864, when Dr. T. J. Wright, Surgeon of the 64th U. S. Colored Infantry toured the plantations in and around Davis Bend, he described the situation as follows:^[10]

Davis' Bend
The neck of land, on which the plantations under consideration are situated, is about thirty miles below Vicksburg, on the Mississippi side of the river. It juts into the river between five and six miles from the mainland. Its form may very appropriately be compared to a flask, the upper portion of the neck of which is the cut-off; and the broad acres--over six thousand in number--of as rich tillable land as the sun ever shone upon, the body of the flask. The cut-off is seven hundred yards in length; and when the water is high, the peninsula becomes an island. As plantations require protection, those on this peninsula possess advantages superior to all others, except those on islands. This bend contains many plantations of large size, each one of which has quarters sufficiently large to accommodate from one to several hundreds.

‘’Lovel's Plantation’’ is better known as Palmyra, from a village of that name which once occupied the site of the present quarters. It is also called Quitman's plantation, for the reason that Gen. Quitman once owned it, and made it his headquarters. It is but a short distance from the cut-off. There is a good frame dwelling-house on the place, furnished with many remains of former rich and substantial articles of comfort and splendor. The quarters are not only good but extensive. They can accommodate, comfortably, several hundred. The cabins are not only roomy and dry, but are built with a view to the comfort and convenience of the people. There are now living on the plantation over two hundred, including men, women, and children, varying in age from two to seventy; a few of whom are unfit for any kind of labor, in consequence of their infirmities--including children and helpless women.

‘’The Lake Plantation’’ is situated on the margin of a large collection of water, which gives it its name. It is about three miles from the Lovel place. Lake plantation contains cabins which have been recently built. Though not as extensive as the Lovel's, yet they are inferior to none on the peninsula: There are now living on this plantation not less than one hundred, a few of whom are far advanced in years, as follows: 2 who have passed their 90th year ; 1 is over 83 ; 2 over 78 ; 7 over 70 ; 1 over 68 ; 1 over 66 ; 4 over 65 ; 1 over 62 ; and 7 over 60. A very large proportion of them are too far advanced in years to be of much service to any one who may work the plantation the coming season. Though comfortably housed, they are not as well clad as it is hoped they soon will be.

'‘’The Banks Plantation’’' quarters are neither very good or extensive. They contain about one hundred, old and young, male and female, varying in age from one to eighty, viz : 1 is over 80 ; 2 over 75 ; 1 over 71 ; and 2 over 70. Small-pox made its appearance several months since, and continued to extend its ravages; though efforts have been made to stop its advancement by a system of general re-vaccination. Strange as it may appear, I have not heard of a single death occurring from small-pox.

‘’The Mill Plantation’’ is one of the Joe. Davis places, about five miles distant from the Banks place. It contains quarters of moderate size, in good repair. There are now living on the plantation not less than one hundred and fifty, varying in age from two to eighty and over, viz: 2 are over 76; 1 over 75; 1 over 73 and 2 over 60. A small portion of these people are unfit for any kind of labor. They are in general supplied with garments for their immediate use.

‘’The Joe. Davis Plantation’’, (sometimes called the Hurricane Plantation), is the largest on the peninsula, and was the residence of the owner. The quarters are very extensive, though the cabins were built many years ago, and are not very good. Not less than two hundred freedmen are now living in the quarters, a few of whom are too far advanced in years to be of much service as laborers . ' 1 is over 96 years of age; 3 are over 80; 1 over 76; 2 over 75; 2 over 70; and 2 over 65. Many of them are not only comfortably quartered, but clad. with good warm clothing. The former owner's mansion, the only one worthy of the name on the peninsula, was a brick building three stories high, finished in modern style. It is to be regretted that this relic of the brother of the immortal Jeff. was not allowed to stand, if only to point a moral, or adorn a “tale.” The library building, of two large rooms, is still in a good state of preservation.

‘’The Jeff. Davis, or Brierfield, Plantation’’ was the residence of Jeff. Davis, the quarters of which are small compared with those of his brother Joseph's, and the cabins are old, and not a few in bad repair. There are now living on the plantation, and in the quarters, about two hundred of all ages and of both sexes; a large proportion of whom are active, able-bodied laborers, who have been recently supplied in part with clothing suitable for the season and the labor to which their attention will be directed. The private residence of Jeff. still stands in a good state of preservation. It is a large frame building, not less than 125 feet long, with smaller buildings connected with it in the rear. It may be said to be a comfortable, commodious house, good enough for any one to live in , but not to be compared with his brother's in style or finish; much less with the modern palaces to be seen anywhere in the Free States, from Iowa to Maine,

‘’The Woods Plantation’’ [Ursino] is the largest but one on the peninsula; yet the quarters are by no means as extensive as the number of acres in cultivation require, to house comfortably the people who will be required to labor in the field. There are now in the quarters about two hundred, a few of whom are advanced in years; 3 are over 80; 1 over 75; and 2 over 70. Many of these people were poorly clad till quite lately when they were supplied in part with clothing for their persons and beds.

Besides the number of freedmen in the quarters, not less than one thousand, perhaps fifteen hundred, were sent to the Bend at the time Goodrich's Landing was vacated, in January last, where a great proportion of them now are. Still later, and since the return of the army from East Mississippi, an acquisition was made of from one to two thousand, who were brought to Vicksburg and forwarded to the Bend on steamers. Quite recently about one-third of the aggregate number has been returned to Vicksburg, and sent from there to the plantations near Goodrich's Landing. The condition of the people who have been thus ordered to the Bend has been of a very disagreeable character. Not a cabin of habitation of any kind was furnished this influx of people, except temporary ones made of rails filled in with mud, and put together by the freedmen in the rudest manner imaginable. While their wardrobes were reduced down, in many instances, to the garments on their backs, with here and there a ragged blanket or comforter to keep them warm at night. Recently a supply of donated clothing was furnished them, which will render them more comfortable than they have been, though not as as they should be.

The Medical and Surgical Department has now three surgeons in this field of labor, who are actively engaged in the practice of their profession. In consequence of the large influx, during the past month, of unprotected persons, while the small-pox was still making its ravages among the people of an adjoining plantation, it is not to be wondered at that it was transmitted from one to another. The result is a number of cases on the Woods plantation, which are not likely to be diminished till all the people on the Bend are protected by revaccination, which is being performed as rapidly as the duties of the surgeons in attendance will admit of.

At the cut off there are stationed three companies of soldiers of the 63d U. S. Infantry, (colored), formerly the 9th Louisiana. There is not a series of plantations in the Southwest so favorably situated, as those on the Bend, for protection; hence the importance, in a military and agricultural point of view, which should be attached to the territory under cultivation.

Sources

1. ↑ Christopher Charles Morris. Town and Country in the Old South: Vicksburg and Warren County, Mississippi, 1770-1860. Doctoral Thesis. University of Florida. 1991. https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/AA/00/03/76/36/00001/towncountryinold00morr.pdf
2. ↑ Robert E. May. John A. Quitman: Old South Crusader LSU Press, 1985. page 111, citing Quitman Family Papers #616, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/00616/#d1e61)
3. ↑ Shinault, Joel W (1979). Camp Life of Contrabands and Freedmen, 1864-1865 [Masters thesis, Atlanta University]. https://radar.auctr.edu/islandora/object/cau.td:1979_shinault_joel_w, citing James Parton, General Butler in New Orleans, (New York:Mason Brothers, 1864), p. 129.
4. ↑ Shinault, Joel W (1979). Camp Life of Contrabands and Freedmen, 1864-1865 [Masters thesis, Atlanta University]. https://radar.auctr.edu/islandora/object/cau.td:1979_shinault_joel_w, citing John Y. Simon, ed. The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 5 vols. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 2:16.
5. ↑ John Eaton, Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen, Logmans, Green and Co. New York, 1907, p 15
6. ↑ Steven Joseph Ross. ‘’Freed Soil, Freed Labor, Freed Men: John Eaton and the Davis Bend Experiment.’’ The Journal of Southern History. Vol. 44, No. 2 (May, 1978), pp. 213-232. Available at https://doi.org/10.2307/2208302. Accessed 24 April 2023.
7. ↑ 1862 Newspaper: "Newspapers.com"
   The New York Times (New York, New York) Thu, May 29, 1862, page 1
   Newspapers Clip: 124278636 (accessed 8 May 2023)
8. ↑ Dawkins, Charles. Wood, James Gilliam (Biography). Jefferson County MSGenWeb, US GenWeb, n.d. https://www.msgw.org/jefferson/firstfamilies/woodjasg.html. Accessed 29 April 2023.
9. ↑ Samuel Thomas, "Report of a Trip to Davis' Bend, Waterproof and Natchez," April 20, 1864, in Joseph Warren comp., Extracts from Reports of Superintendents of Freedmen, Series 1 (2 series, Vicksburg, Miss., 1864), 6-7
10. ↑ Extracts from Reports of Superintendents of Freedmen, Compiled by Rev. Joseph Warren, D. D. Second Series--- JUNE, 1864. SYNOPSIS OF REPORTS OF DR. T. J, WRIGHT, SURGEON 64TH U. S. CORORED INFANTRY, ON FREEDMEN'S CAMPS AND HOSPITALS — TOUR OF INSPECTION ENDING FEBRUARY 20, 1864. To D.O. McCord, M: D:, Medical Director and Inspector of Freedmen

See also: Register of Freedmen at Home Colony, Davis Bend, MS