VOL. I. DUNN, N. C, FEBRUARY IS, 1933. NUMBER 3 the generally .ascribed glamour of the old south. THE/' ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF TH^f CONFEDERATE WAR. THE REAL REASONS FOR THE SOUTH’S POVERTY. FACTS VS. FICTION It is the second topic that I wish to emphasize in this article. However, before discussing the effects of the war of the sixties upon the economic life of the South or particularly of North Carolina, it will be almost necessary to present a fair view of ilie antebellum state of affairs. That tradition ?and literature have attached much false glamour to'the life of the Old South is evident to one who views the matter even in the light of what remained within the memory of the immediate post-bellum youth. \\ hen, a quarter of a century ago, the writer was teaching in a north- Georgia town, an eloquent young Pastor of a Gainesville church, canie and de.ivere l a lecture upon the “Old South.’’ He glovying-iy pictured the great mansions, approached by avenues with great over-spreading oaks; he dilated upon the a bounding hospitality, the prolonged house parties, the horses, hounds, and hunts of the usual Southern tradition of ante-bellum grandeur. It was a beauti ful picture, an eloquent address. The next morning, a leading ciftzeh 0f the town, brimming over with enthusiasm, expected the writer to join him in his plaudits of the address. Instead, I asked him to take me to one of those ante-bellihn mansions .anywhere within ten',miles, whatever its then c°ii£iticiL_.ar-_i£ ■’ it were burned or-torn down to take me^at leaafc to» its site. He couldn’t locate brie. -v**"-— Let the reader, if he is under .the delusion that life in the Old South was one glorious holiday for the white population, and that mansions and plenty were the rule, make a similar test You live in the South; tradition is not so dead that at least the sites of those splendid mansions, scenes of abounding cul ture, hospitality, and plenty, cannot be located if they ever existed. The writer's youth, however, was much nearer the ante-bellum period than the ave rage reader’s, and his own observations are, there fore, more -definite and exact. WEALTHY ARISTOCRATS NOT NUMERpUS There were aristocrats, a few, and wealthy ones at that. There were other wealthy families who had not escaped from the peasant’s stage of culture, and manner of life, save that of the greater abundance their wealth provided and the aspirations accompa nying their prosperity, resulting in educational and recreational provision for their children. To me, ae an earlier post-bellum observer and interpreter, it has been a question as to which was the more effec tive, the Old English aristocractic strain in making the rich Southerner or economic success, in makin? the Southern aristocrat. Both kinds of aristocrats. I am sure^j existed in 1860. Scions of prosperous pea sant families of the earlier colonial days had blos somed out by that crucial date into members of the Southern aristocracy. Location of Settlement Largely Determined Future Status of Family. The prosperity, and therefore later social stand ing of the family of the colonial settler, was largely determined by his luck or judgment in choosing a\ homestead site. Usually the more ■ inteiii&'riit. ihc more wealthy was the newly arrived colonial. Those two elements enabled him to choose his future home more discreetly.. Yet some of the poor and ignorant would, almost by chance, locate wisely. The family of a real aristocrat, with a moderate share of wealth, who got badly placed would, In the course 6 thiee or four generations, probably degenerate in both social and financial standing. It would be enlightening to compare the ante-bel lum or early post-bellum status of the people of Franklin and Lisbon'townships, of Sampson county, on the one hand, and that of the residents of Mingo -township,, on the. other hand. Lisbon and EranKho had many prosperous families, aiid large, we’l -huilt homes, which to-day bear testimony of considerable wealth and culture. Early settler!* who entered lands embracing bofh^jriver^ bottom and turpentlpe were exceedingly fortunate. But even those 'who settled a few miles from the navigable rivers bad an advantage that the settlers in Mingo lacked. They had the means of perfect drainage of their lands and shipping facilities by Water for their turpentine timber, and the products of the fields; while Wil mington Was only a little more than a day’s drive away. Settlers in Mingo had flat pine areas difficult to drain, and a soil naturally poor when cleared; The consequende was there was more well to do and cul tured people sixty years ago in Franklin township than in Mingo, and the fact, I, believe, was more determined by good fortune in settlement than in the stock or status of the original .-ettlei^; rhf pass ing qf turpentine and the wearing out of the sandy soils and the loss of drainage of the river bottoms by the filling of the streams, with sand, aipd the. con sequent souring of the lowlands, on the one hand, proved a serious blow to the earlier prosperity of the river townships." On the other hand, the passing •f turpentine, the main support of the inhabitants of Mingo township in earlier days, and the discovery ' of the excellence of the soi^ when drained and im proved, have turned the tables upon the former more prosperous townships. Mingo and similar areas have.; in recent years been the prosperous sections ' of Sampson and of counties of similar terrain. However, the river township^ had- their backwoods areas and their “poor white trash” -In antftahfcllmxu-. . days; while the riverless areas also bad thcV'dc-5 ycaaionaitiWeli-tq-.dh"faiteer» w^ty w the writer would wager that South' Clinton, Lisboh, t Franklin, Taylor’s Bridge, and Turkey loivnsKips, «5f Sampson county, had five times as many slaves m them as the other eisrht or ten hod . . - - ‘ 'i/'.-': OlNE IN EIGHT OWNED SLAVES _ To show the utter unreasonableness of the asshmp-. tion that the old Squth was peopled largely by rich slave holders, it is only necessary to state that sta tistics show that only about one family in eight owned even one slave or more There were, vast areas, like western North Carolina, where there was scare**, ly a slave to a county. This fact is emphasized be cause slaves were the badge of wealth and gentility., In some sections, like the Albermarle section of this state, there was a large sprinkling of descendants of English gentry; in parts of Virginia the same is true; also in portions of South Carolina. And these naturally hfui the choice of lands, or chose better, and were able to secure and maintain slaves. Ac cordingly while sections of the South were practi cally without slaves at all, othei- areas ..contained many slave-holders. It was these areas which gave rise to the delusion as to the wealth and culture of the Old South. The traditioj^ was measurably true . for those areas, but the trouble is they were few in number and comprised an exceedingly small part of the vast southland. The Critical Period ot oiavery Despite the attachment of the slave-holders to the system, slavery was evidently, not^ an eco nomic success in the upper states of the South and would have proved equally unsuccessful, given, in the deep South. Man /. hundreds, ot families had found their North Carolina lands in sufficient to maintain -the increasing numbers of . their slaves and had moved to the new lands of Mis souri, Arkansas. Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi. In Chatham county, for instance, one may find the names of large slave owners in the census of 1790 whose family names "have vanished entirely from the county. No Negroes of their nam^s survive. The fact is generally accounted,for by the familiar, era gration -Slaves Sold-Just as .Stock. Emigration was the s^Utign to failing support f-r; the" fanjjly and slaved In some 'cases. Si. other cases^J the difficulty was surmounted fejf. making the rcating of slaves an industry in itself. Some large alave-' holders who failed to produce enough to support the family and the horde of slaves, when they got in debt, would sen a slave or slaves to pay out, Just as 4 farmer now would sell a cow or a colt, or a, brood of pigs. That is not guessing. The largest rlxvo- , holder in Sampson county told my father that'- he resorted to the sale of a*slave -when he ran behind as he, traditionally, often did, while the slaves, it has been said, sometimes resorted to stealing to get suf- - ficienh food. The rich new lands in. thse* deep South afforded the market for the overplus of slavCi. just as North Carolina does for Kansas*mules. - Constantly, the number of slave holders' was in creasing. An ordinary farmer with one family of slaves found it a help.. But as the slaves multiplied, as they did very rapidly, the -farm would become worn out and the place too poor and small to sup port the larger number. My father had one family at the opening of the war. Several boys had be come able-bodied men. Three or four girls were of marriageable age when freedom came. It is mani ifest to the son that the sandhill farm would i.oi have supported till now fourth of the progeny" of that Negro family . True, more land might ha -a been acquired, but only by selling the slaves like mules, for there would! have been no getting suffi ciently atead to buy the additional lands needed for the multiplying slaves. ' The Condition in ,1860 What, is here said is immediately applicable to conditions in eastern North, Carolina. . Much of! it, excepting chiefly the reference to the-turpentine in dustry, will apRly to other" 6lave : holding sections. In brief, the older South, much of it at'least, was on the-verge of Impoverishment. piheyof ,iPa«Biif%;;‘.The yaslfy-clea^edr'^^‘lanfls^of "'the‘chstfrii ;ipdrt ers knew no. means of restoring them: ‘ ;-The<; jpart of the people had never been well-to do. but i»ad eked out a mere livthg. The large s!ave-i*qld ers, as Indicated above,, had reached the pointwhero they could barely,; if at all, sustain the slave popula tion, and were forced to sell slave! to the planters'of the deeper South to make ends meet. And, if you have the idea that the whole area'of Alabama^Mis sissippi, Louisiana, and Texas is naturally fertile, you ., are far from the truth. The upper palves of the first three are very much like the middle section of North Carolina, while the long-leaf pine belts are practically of the Identical character of that of this state. The number of fortunately located .planters iri those, states was much smaller than you might think. The larger part'of the population was of. the small-farmer class, making a scanty living, ao did the average man in North Carolina, and being In large measure enabled to do that because- of ^re ranges, which provided pork and beef' in largei* quantities than the South has-had in later years. . Ip middle and western North Carolina, as in Ail parts of the. South,-there was an occasional wealthy planter, or planter and merchant combined But the lands were becoming-impoverished there as in the east. • 7 f , ' ' ine oia' neids and thecharacterof the hoin.'-s that survive even to the writer’s djay of observation told the stery just as truly as they could tell it to the ante-helium people themselves. * My observation runs back to a time only as remote from ,the war. of the sixties as we are to-day from the world war. Simply pass, to-day, through a Section o| tfie'Coun try which was not transformed during tfee years* of prosperity and ’ ypu will have nor trouble in' telling what was there twenty years ago—whether it "was a land of culture and prosperity. Go t<> Richlands, Onslow county, even to-day and you can deiermin® that there was a really prosperous community in the , olden times. Go from Mayesville, Jones' county, 'to Swahsboro, Onslbw, and you will know as wnll a* if you had seen it 75 years ago that you .arc passing through a country that has never-6b«n very pros- ; perous or cultured. Greece! to-day giyes evidence of Its culture and glory 2500. years ago* , - The greater part of the'South hears n? tcs.nnony ' of having at-any time beer, either cultured oi pros perous. The evidence of house sites and little old pine >' ' fteldM, lo'ng ago abandoned, tell llfe tale of an Impov erished .people. On my father’s trsfct of 75inc». ... (Continued on pag# eighty