Located just south of Vicksburg along the Mississippi River, Davis Bend was the site of one of the first experiments in African-American free labor during the Civil War. Originally designed as a model for antebellum slave plantations, Davis Bend, instead, became a model for how to transform slave labor to a free labor system while still maintaining profitability. In addition, the plantations at Davis Bend attempted to create a community of cooperation, whereby black farmers and laborers were given more autonomy over production and their daily lives.
Joseph Davis, a successful Mississippi lawyer, founded Davis Bend in 1827. Influenced by utopian thinkers, Davis sought to create a model plantation, whereby slaves were given more freedom and responsibility. Davis provided his slaves with better food and housing. He encouraged the development of skilled labor and rewarded superior work with gifts and other financial incentives. Moreover, a slave jury authorized punishments on the plantation, not the overseer.
Within this environment, Davis encouraged the development of individual slaves, most notably Benjamin Montgomery. Montgomery, a self-educated and skilled engineer, oversaw levee construction and served as a cotton gin mechanic. He quickly distinguished himself as a leader and an entrepreneur by establishing a store on the Davis plantation, selling goods to white people, and even establishing a line of credit with New Orleans wholesalers. With the help of Montgomery, the Davis Bend plantation prospered in the antebellum era.
The Civil War, however, fundamentally transformed Joseph Davis’s dream of a community of cooperation. Davis abandoned the Davis Bend plantations ahead of the advancing Union army. Most of his slaves, though, resisted Davis’s entreaties to flee with him and some even looted the plantation’s mansions after his departure.
Union military leaders hoped to transform Davis Bend into a black colony that would serve as a model for the transition from slave to free labor and operate as a haven for freedmen. Blessed with rich soil and a preexisting labor force, Davis Bend was a prime location for an experiment that hoped to prove the superiority of a free labor system. There also were political motives for establishing a black colony. Jeeeerson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, was Joseph Davis’s younger brother and had administered one of the plantations (Brierfield) on Davis Bend before the war.
The Freedmen’s Bureau assumed control of Davis Bend in 1865 and leased land to freedmen who in turn planted cotton. Black lessees turned a profit and benefited from the protection of the Union army. Self-government was reestablished, including a court system, an elected sheriff, and a board of education. Overall, the experiment was a success.
Carrying on a revised vision of Joseph Davis’s dream, Ben Montgomery believed that in order for Davis Bend to become a utopian community, black people needed to be in control of the plantations. In 1866 Montgomery purchased (under favorable terms) the Davis Bend plantations from Joseph Davis. Although damaging floods and pests plagued the first couple of years, the all-black Davis
Bend plantations thrived during Reconstruction, producing some of the highest quality cotton in the country. To defuse white opposition, Montgomery emphasized the utopian ideal of Davis Bend and publicly discounted the importance of African-American political activity. Nonetheless, the sizable population of freedmen in Davis Bend attracted Republican politicians who depended on their votes in statewide offices.
The freedmen benefited from fertile land, favorable credit terms, and protection from white intrusion, but by 1875, the Davis Bend community began to decline as Reconstruction came to an end. Jefferson Davis sued and reclaimed the Brierfield plantation. Poor cotton crops in 1875 and 1876 depleted Montgomery’s capital reserves, forcing him to turn over to creditors one of the remaining two plantations.
Unlike other experiments with black free labor, such as the Port Royal Experiment, the Davis Bend freedmen were adept at raising cotton and turning a profit. Their success owed to the unique leadership of Ben Montgomery and his prior experience in plantation management. It was his commitment to an all-black community, however, that enabled him to win the trust of the freedmen and attract the opposition of white Mississip-pians. The postwar community succeeded because the freedmen were given more autonomy and control over their crops and their persons.
Further reading: Janet Sharp Hermann, The of a
Dream (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999).
—Justin J. Behrend
De Forest, John William (1826-1906) author, Union soldier
Author and soldier John William De Forest was born in Humphreysville, Connecticut, in 1826. As a young adult, De Forest traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East. By the time of the Civil War, De Forest was a well-known writer of travel books and novels.
Immediately after the outbreak ofwar, De Forest raised a company in support of the Union. He was sworn into service on January 1, 1862, and served as captain of Company I, 12th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. During the war De Forest and his regiment saw action in Louisiana at the siege of Port Hudson, as well as in the Virginia countryside in 1864. He was particularly affected by his experience at the Battle of Cedar Creek in October 1864. After the war, De Forest famously wrote that, “I never on any other battlefield saw so much blood as on this of Cedar Creek. The firm limestone soil would not receive it, and there was no pitying summer grass to hide it.” He was discharged from the 12th Connecticut on December 2, 1864.
After the war De Forest resumed his writing career, penning his memoirs along with a number of fictional works. In the many short stories and novels that flowed from his pen, De Forest portrayed soldiers’ lives with emotion, accuracy, and respect. Determined to faithfully chronicle the war from the ordinary volunteer’s point of view, De Forest helped to pioneer the “realistic” genre of combat writing. De Forest’s most famous novel, Miss Ravenel’s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (1867) combined a realistic view of combat with a romantic story of sectional reconciliation. The theme of reunion became increasingly prominent in De Forest’s later works, as the nation came to view the South with an increasing sense of romanticism.
Productive well into his 70s, John William De Forest died in 1906 at the age of 80 in New Haven, Connecticut.
See also literature.
Further reading: John William De Forest, A Union Officer in the Reconstruction (1868-69; reprint, Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1968); James F. Light, John William De Forest (New York: Twayne, 1965).
—Megan Quinn
Delany, Martin Robinson (1812-1885) social reformer and soldier
Born in Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), on May 6, 1812, Martin Robinson Delany became a well-known writer and a leader of the black colonization movement. Delany initially fought for racial equality, but later he concluded that this goal was no longer possible in the United States. Thereafter, he pursued the idea of colonization in territories outside of the country.
Delany’s formal education began when he attended an African-American high school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Afterward, he served as a doctor’s apprentice, and in 1836 he set up his own medical practice. While in Pittsburgh, Delany founded a temperance society and actively worked with a slave rescue and transport group. In 1843 Delany married Catherine A. Richards, with whom he had seven children. In the years immediately after his marriage, Delany wrote on the condition of African Americans in the United States. From 1843 to 1847, he published a newspaper entitled The Mystery (1843-47). For a short time, he also coedited the Rochester North Star with Frederick Douglass.
Two experiences in the early 1850s made Delany a proponent of African colonization. The first was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. The second was the decision of Delany’s classmates to dismiss him and two other African-American students from Harvard Medical School in 1851. These two events vastly increased Delany’s frustration with the condition of race relations in the United
Martin Robinson Delany (Hulton/Archive)
States. In 1852, after his expulsion from Harvard, Delany published his first book, entitled The Condi-tion, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States. In it, Delany said he believed that African Americans could not successfully “elevate” their situation to attain “equality with the white man” if they continued to live within the United States. Delany recommended that black people seek new territory in Central and South America. He would later promote emigration to Africa and would make several trips to Liberia to coordinate emigration efforts.
During the CiviL War, Delany recruited African-American troops in New England. In 1865 he was commissioned, becoming one of the first African-American field officers in the Union army. Major Delany served as a physician in the Union army for only three months, however, before the war ended. After the war, Delany worked in the Freedmen’s Bureau in South Carolina for three years. Later he became a trial judge in Charleston, South Carolina. Racial extremists ultimately forced Delany to leave this post once Reconstruction had ended. Despite this setback, Delany continued to publish books and articles until his death on January 24, 1885.
See also race and racial conelict.
Further reading: Robert S. Levine, Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Dorothy Sterling, The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany, 1812-1885 (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1971).
—Courtney Spikes
World History
