Plantations Along the Old Trace

This page is under development. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail us

Why Plantations? Why Enslave Others? It was business.

These are some of the people we have documented information about and will be adding to this page.
Including but not limited to:

• Mount Locust (also on Enslaved People page)
• George Colbert - AL & MS Information about Colbert Ferry can be found at this link
• Levi Colbert - AL Information about Levi Colbert's Buzzard Roost can be found at this link.
• Abijah Hunt - MS Grindstone Ford (Port Gibson) Information about Abijah Hunt as postmaster can be found at this link
• David Hunt MS
• Zachary Taylor Rodney, MS Information about Zachary Taylor and the politics of slavery can be found here.
• Melrose Place, Natchez, MS
• Elizabeth Holiday Greenfield Natchez, MS

 

These maps show the increase of forced migration of enslaved people. Please click on the map to leave NPS and visit the original page at the University of Richmond's digital laboratory.

Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond

First, the Native American Indian Tribes

As the US expanded westward, the Native Americans who lived in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee were displaced. Initially, Thomas Jefferson was key in establishing trading posts along the Old Trace for the purpose of indebting local tribespersons. The post owners liberally provided credit to the Chickasaw and Choctaw people. When the debts were called in, they were settled by the land treaties that enabled White settlers to move into the area.

The Chickasaw and Choctaw who maintained land, farmed it much like the White settlers and plantation owners. They enslaved people, as did their white counterparts. Information records such as censuses were not collected about the Native Americans because they were not considered citizens of the USA.

Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830, exponentially changed the face of the area as the majority of Chickasaw and Choctaw were removed to the Oklahoma territory.

The White Migration

When the tribes were removed, more land was available for White entrepreneurs from the northeast. Through farming, they created the most affluent area of the US and its territories. The land owners quickly tapped into the cotton industry and provided goods to meet the demands of the northeastern mills and Europe. The more cotton they grew, the more people they needed to enslave.

The African Americans - Forced Migration

The story of enslavement in the south is widely known. Using slave labor was cheaper than paying people to work the land. It is hard to fathom that slavery and harsh punishment was socially acceptable to much of the world at that time. Human rights were not appreciated in the same way as they are today.

 

Plantation Locations On the Natchez Trace Parkway

 

Conjectural painting of African American men running a ferry.

HFC NPS Artist Harlin, Greg/Wood Ronsaville Harlin, Inc.

Colbert Ferry milepost 327.3 & Buzzard Roost milepost 320.3

The information regarding the Colberts is from Travel, Trade, and Travail: Slavery on the Old Natchez Trace
Kelly Obernuefemann and Lynnell Thomas
Eastern National for Natchez Trace Parkway 2001

Colbert's Stand was not only a thriving plantation with enslaved Blacks, it was also a ferry service. In the 1780s, James Colbert "had a rich lodging among the Chickasaws, 150 Negro slaves, and several sons by Chickasaw women."

After Colbert's death in late 1783 or early 1784, his sons George and Levi operated stands in Chickasaw territory. Levi operated the Buzzard Roost Stand and owned a plantation that used slave labor. George operated a stand and ferry on the Tennessee River to which many travelers.

Jacob Young wrote: "We camped on the bottom-land of the river, and went to see Col. George Colbert. He was a half-breed Indian. His father was a Scotchman, and his mother a full-blooded Indian .... He and his brother had a large farm and about 40 Negroes working. We bought some com, pumpkins, and com-blades, for which he charged us a very high price. We sat down and had a social chat and were considerably entertained with his shrewdness and witticism."

As the deerskin trade dissipated and Indian debts to white traders escalated, some Natives Americans, like the Colberts, became cotton farmers while others worked as laborers or peddlers.

When George Colbert relocated to Oklahoma during the Indian Removal, he took his enslaved workers with him.

 

Mount Locust milepost 15.5

Established in 1779 from a land grand from the British colony of West Florida, the property was transferred to John Blomart who built a small cabin on the property. William Ferguson purchased 615 acres of land after 1783. His wife Pauline eventually became the matriarch of Mount Locust. Pauline and her children by Ferguson and Chamberlain grew Mount Locust into a thriving business. Typical of the period, they enslaved Black people.

In November 1834, Thomas Jefferson Chamberlain wrote to his brother Louis: "I have been trying to purchase negroes ... but they ask us from $1,600 to $2,000 ... for them. We will not be able to purchase for several weeks I am afraid."

Still their number of enslaved people continually increased due to both natural increase and purchases. In the 1820 census, Mrs. P. Ferguson lists 26 slaves in her household. In 1830, Mount Locust's enslaved population had increased to 42. Although records were not obtained from the 1840 census, 41 and 53 slaves are listed on Paulina Ferguson's 1841 will and 1849 estate appraisal, respectively.40 At her death, at least 23 of these people were given to Thomas Jefferson Chamberlain, who had purchased 32 enslaved people as part of the Liverpool plantation in 1843. In 1850, Chamberlain lists 35 slaves in his household, which increased to 72 slaves in the 1860 census. Evidently, the enslaved people on the adjacent Liverpool plantation, which were not part of the Mount Locust house­hold, were not included in the 1850 census records because even with the sale of 15 persons in 1845, Chamber­lain would have had more than 35 enslaved in 1850 due to natural increase and a few additional purchases. The 1854 estate of Thomas Jefferson Chamberlain, which included both plantations, lists 98 enslaved persons.

 

 

 

David Hunt Owned Several Plantations

David Hunt moved to Mississippi to help out his uncle, Abijah Hunt. The Hunts were from New Jersey. Abijah Hunt was a contractor of postal riders and the first Natchez Trace postmaster in Mississippi.

David Hunt owned several plantations in Mississippi, most in Adams and Jefferson counties, which the Natchez Trace transects. Some of his plantations were Black Creek, Buena Vista, Fatlands, Homewood, Lansdowne, Wilderness, and Woodlawn. There were 375 enslaved people on the schedule in August of 1850. 

Listing of Numbers of People

	Age	Sex	Color

Download This Dataset