The State of Jones (58 page)

275
It was just 496:
County election statistics and details are from Boutwell,
Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875, see appendix charts.
Also Lehmann,
Redemption
, pp. 140-56.

276
they got just 4:
Ibid. The lack of Republican support in Jones was not surprising—the county was solidly Democratic—but four paltry votes nevertheless suggests Republicans stayed home. In Jasper County Republicans apparently voted safely, and the party actually amassed 835 votes. Nevertheless Jasper, a county that had been solidly Republican two years earlier, swung to the Democrats, who commanded 1,163 votes.

The degree of intimidation, murder, and warfare against blacks and Republicans was heaviest in the wealthy planter counties with high black populations; those counties (Adams, Claiborne, Hinds, Holmes, Washington, Yazoo) showed the most dramatic swings to Democratic victories, owing to the success of the Mississippi Plan. Republicans like Newton clearly did not pose as much of a threat in Jones and Jasper as they did in the Black Belt. These inferences are supported by the fewer incidences of violence against Republicans in Jones and Jasper, though there were some. Newton Knight, with his Republican and interracial ideals, could be tolerated by whites in Jones and Jasper counties in a way that he never would have been had he lived near Natchez or in Yazoo or another predominantly black (and Republican) county. It’s safe to say that had Newton Knight lived in Adams County (near Natchez) or in Yazoo, near Albert Morgan, he would have either
been killed, run out of town, or forced to vote Democratic in exchange for his life.

276
four-to-one majority:
Foner,
Reconstruction
, pp. 558-63; Lord, “Mississippi: The Past That Has Not Died.”

276
“not a space where one could lay a hand”:
Lehmann,
Redemption
, pp. 159-60.

276
“by way of reminder”:
Ibid., pp. 163-64.

277
Rather than prolong the state’s agony:
Ibid.; Somerville and Howorth,
My Dear Nellie
, pp. 240-41.

277
As the presidential race of 1876 approached:
Foner,
Reconstruction
, p. 569.

277
“do what it pleases with them”:
Lehmann,
Redemption
, p. 171.

277
“incapable of comprehending it”:
Ibid., p. 165.

278
“I want no ‘committee’ in mine”:
Records of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875
, microfilm, New York Public Library, Manuscript and Archives Division.

278
“the Constitution of the United States”:
Boutwell,
Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875
, vol. 2, conclusion.

279
without any further federal help:
Foner,
Reconstruction
, p. 582; Lehmann,
Redemption
, p. 166.

279
“nothing more to do with him”:
Quotes are from Foner,
Reconstruction
, p. 582.

279
They had lost:
Foner,
Reconstruction
, p. 562.

280
“that supposed business”:
Transcript of
The State of Mississippi v. Davis Knight
, Circuit Court of the First Judicial District, Jones County, p. 20.

281
a separate mixed-race society:
Knight,
The Life and Activities of Captain Newton Knight
, p. 12. Bynum, in
The Free State of Jones
, p. 144, observes that even as redeemers regained control of the state, Newton again defied them, “not just politically but personally.”

282
The title to her own land:
A copy of Newton’s deed to Rachel is in the files of the authors, who received it from Jim Kelly, Newton Knight scholar and vice president of instructional affairs at Jones County Junior College. It stated that Rachel paid Newton a “fea simple” of $150 for the land, which he declared free of “incubance.” The price of less than a dollar an acre was extremely cheap; the average price of unimproved land in the South in those years was two dollars to eight dollars, according to Loren Schweninger,
Black Property Owners in the South 1790-1915
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997), p. 148. Newton pledged to “warrant and defend the title of the Said Richel Knight and to her heirs and assigners.” Rachel was referred to as Newton’s “second wife” by Vermell Moffett, granddaughter of Newton and Rachel, in a newspaper interview, “Knight Legend Lives on in Mulatto Offspring,”
Clarion-Ledger
, October 6, 1977.

282
“iron grip” of the sharecropping system:
Statistics on black land ownership in the state are from Vernon Lane Wharton,
The Negro in Mississippi 1865-1890
(New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), p. 61. Statistics on land ownership in the Cotton South and description of the white “iron grip” on real estate are from Schweninger,
Black Property Owners in the South
, p. 163.

282
“constantly shoved and pushed around”:
Knight,
Mississippi Girl
, p. 12.

283
a son named John Howard:
U.S. Federal Census, 1870; also see Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, pp. 206-7, for a genealogical chart. Who fathered Georgeanne’s children was an open question. Some said they were the offspring of neighboring white farmers, and as an adult, Anna Knight suggested her father was an unnamed sharecropper who worked on Newton’s land; see Knight,
Mississippi Girl
, p. 11. There were also disquieting rumors that they were Newton’s; see Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, p. 272n. No one would ever know for sure. The parentage of the infants hardly mattered from a practical standpoint; Newton helped to rear and provide for all of the children on the farm, who treated him as a father.

Knight descendants do not tend to believe that Georgeanne’s children were Newton’s, according to the authors’ interviews and Bynum’s notes on her interviews of Knight descendants. Genealogists are split on the matter. Martha Welborn, operating on oral history passed down from Rachel’s grandchildren, believes they were the progeny of neighboring yeomen. Kenneth Welch, however, is convinced they are Newton’s.

Anna Knight applied for a Social Security card in 1963, and on it, she listed her father as “Newton Knight.” (A copy is in possession of the authors.) However, it’s possible that Anna regarded Newton as her father simply because he raised her. In her memoir
Mississippi Girl
, p. 11, Anna refers to her father only obliquely and suggests he farmed on Newton’s property. “Although my parents were no longer slaves, they were poor and had little of this world’s goods and were compelled, by circumstances, to work as sharecroppers on the white man’s land until they were able to buy land for themselves,” she writes. But Anna may have been purposely circumspect since her memoir was that of a devout Seventh-Day Adventist missionary and meant for a young audience.

Georgeanne would have two more children, daughters Grace and Lessie, born in 1891 and 1894 respectively. According to Welch, and to Bynum (The
Free State of Jones
, p. 272n), Grace and Lessie’s death certificates also list Newton Knight as their father. Again, they may have considered him a father simply because he provided for them.

Welch, operating on the belief Newton indeed fathered them, offers an interesting theory. He notes a seventeen-year gap between the births of Georgeanne’s two sets of children and speculates that Newton may have become involved with Georgeanne in 1875 or 1876, but that Rachel put a stop to it. Newton then resumed his relationship with Georgeanne after Rachel’s death. It’s worth noting that the only woman with whom Newton seems to have fathered any children between 1875 and 1889 was Rachel. It
seems possible that Newton honored Rachel’s wishes and remained faithful to her until her death.

According to Welch, and to Bynum (The
Free State of Jones
, pp. 206-7), Newton’s children with Rachel were: Martha Ann (1865), Stewart (1869), Floyd (1870), Augusta Ann (1873), and John Madison (1875). Newton’s children with Serena were: George Mathew “Mat” (1859), Thomas Jefferson (1860), Martha Ann “Molly” (1864), Joseph Sullivan (1866), Susan A. (1868), Keziah (1871), and Cora Ann (1873). In addition, Newton and Serena buried two small boys, Billy, twin of T. J., apparently killed in a fire just after the war (see Knight,
The Echo of the Black Horn
, p. 255), and Leonard (b. 1875), who died in infancy. 283
mustard greens, string beans, and tomatoes:
Authors’ phone interview with Jules Smith, granddaughter of Hinchie Knight, youngest son of Rachel and Newton Knight, April 6, 2008.

283
an average of $1,086 in the North:
Lord, “Mississippi: The Past That Has Not Died.”

284
just 11.4 percent:
U.S. Federal Census, 1870, 1880; Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, p. 145; Knight,
Mississippi Girl
, p. 12; Wharton,
The Negro in Mississippi
, p. 61.

284
“A Charge to Keep”:
Knight,
Mississippi Girl
, pp. 16-17.

284
for the thirsty:
Knight,
The Echo of the Black Horn
, p. 258.

284
took several lives in the area:
U.S. Federal Census, 1880; “Spotlight on Ellisville,”
Jackson Daily News
, August 1, 1949.

285
these solitary trips:
Knight,
The Echo of the Black Horn
, p. 263.

285
“were given advantages”:
B. D. Graves, address to the Hebron Community, June 17, 1926, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss.; Rawick,
The American Slave
, supplement, series 1, vol. 10,
Mississippi Narratives
, part 5, interview with Martha Wheeler, former slave belonging to Jackie Knight, pp. 2262-71.

285
“mixed the blood of the races”:
Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, p. 160; Knight,
The Echo of the Black Horn
, pp. 281-328, quotation from p. 281. Ethel Knight was descended from James Knight’s side of the family.

286
scribbling some names down twice:
U.S. Federal Census, 1880; Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, p. 144.

287
sixty cents a day board:
Foner,
Reconstruction
, p. 594; Oshinsky,
“Worse than Slavery,”
p. 42.

287
He seemed to be ever alert:
Victoria Bynum’s notes on interview with Knight descendants Florence Blaylock, Olga Watts, Dorothy Marsh, Lois Knight, and Annette Knight, Soso, Mississippi, July 22, 1996, for
The Free State of Jones
, Mississippi Oral History Project, University of Southern Mississippi; Knight,
The Echo of the Black Horn
, p. 259.

287
“nothing will induce him to talk of the war”:
G. Norton Galloway, “A Confederacy within a Confederacy,”
Magazine of American History
16:4 (July-December 1886), p. 389. Galloway’s version of the Jones County guerrillas was highly inaccurate in places, but his description of Newton is validated by other descriptions that suggest he indeed felt threatened. See Knight,
The Life and Activities of Captain Newton Knight
, pp. 5-6; Bynum’s notes on interviews with Florence Blaylock and Dorothy Knight Marsh; as well as the authors’ interview with Barbara Blackledge, March 28, 2008.

288
“ruin both races”:
“Inauguration of Robert Lowry,”
Vicksburg Daily Appeal
, January 9, 1882.

288
“As the stream could not rise above its source”:
Bond,
Political Culture in the 19th Century South
, p. 274.

288
“We have won, but I am disgusted”:
Cincinnati Daily Gazette
, September 22, 1881; Stephen Cresswell,
Rednecks, Redeemers, and Race: Mississippi After Reconstruction, 1877-1917
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, for the Mississippi Historical Association, 2006), p. 111; “Inauguration of Robert Lowry,”
Vicksburg Daily Appeal
, January 9, 1882.

288
“contemplate such an experiment”:
“Inauguration of Robert Lowry,”
Vicksburg Daily Appeal
, January 9, 1882.

289
he might have killed him:
A. D. Kirwan,
Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics 1876-1925
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1951), p. 56; Montgomery, “Alleged Secession of Jones County,” pp. 13-23; Frost, “The South’s Strangest Army Revealed by Chief.”

289
election supervisor for Jasper County:
Copy of appointment in the files of Knight archivist and scholar Kenneth Welch, provided to authors by Jim Kelly, vice president of instructional affairs at Jones County Junior College.

289
molasses fifty cents a gallon:
Letter from Newton Knight to his brother John, April 3, 1887, reprinted in Thomas et al.,
The Family of John “Jackie” Knight and Keziah Davis Knight.

290
conveniently omitting slavery:
Roberts and Moneyhon,
Portraits of Conflict
, p. 335.

290
difference from Negroes as a class:
Ethel Knight,
The Echo of the Black Horn
, pp. 245-78; Mark Twain,
Life on the Mississippi
, James M. Cox, ed. (1883; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1984), pp. 315-16; John M. Coski,
The Confederate Battle Flag: America’s Most Embattled Emblem
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 45-50.

290
Davis’s funeral:
Evans,
Confederate Military History
, vol. 9, p. 263; Ames’s quotation is from Lehmann,
Redemption
, p. 79.