Oct 14, 2016 Orange County Review
In the first quarter of the 19th century, agricultural economics began to change significantly in Virginia. Never a state for high cotton production—that would be left to such places as Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas—Virginia’s prosperous production of tobacco had peaked by 1800 and depleted most of the best soils in the Commonwealth.
Virginia landowners would turn to grains and livestock. Both cotton and tobacco were multi-month crops and extremely labor-intensive, requiring a massive quantity of an all-hands-on-deck work force. Grains and livestock required more skill and less labor.
Virginia slaveholders were no longer in need of a vast labor force. Nonetheless, they already owned far more “hands” than they now needed. What to do?
Couple this scenario with the enactment of the 1808 legislation that made the Atlantic slave trade illegal into the United States. It was no longer legal to import people from Africa to be sold into slavery in the United States.
But wait! Cotton was becoming the king of crops in the lower south alongside sugar plantations. Both crops demanded a massive amount of human machinery laboring dawn to dusk year-round.
The answer became apparent to plantation owners: the supply of human resources would have to come from within. And there we find Virginia discovering a lucrative resolution to her own dilemma. Virginia stepped into the realm of breeding and selling human lives to serve the growing cotton industry down south.
Certainly not all Virginia slaveholders engaged in the practice, but when push came to shove and the creditors were pounding on the front and the back door, one can rationalize most anything.
“The Virginia times (a weekly newspaper, published at Wheeling, Virginia) estimates, in 1836, the number of slaves exported for sale from that state alone, during the ’12 months preceding,’ at 40,000, the aggregate value of whom is computed at $24 million. Allowing for Virginia one-half of the whole exportation during the period in question and we have the … sum of 80,000 slaves exported in a single year from the breeding states. Maryland ranks next to Virginia in point of numbers, North Carolina follows Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, then Tennessee and Delaware. The Natchez (Mississippi) Courier says ‘that the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, imported 250,000 slaves from the more northern states in the year 1836.”
Additional quotes can be found here http://thecommonroomblog.com/2012/09/slave-breeding-in-the-south.html
In researching the men who listed their place of birth as Orange or one of the surrounding counties, it is fascinating to read where they actually enlisted during the Civil War. Though we may yet find others, the men below were born in Orange County, VA. Their enlistment locations as well as their regiment and company are recorded.
Phillip Minor: Haines Bluff, Miss…46th USCT, Co. G
Frank Taylor: Vicksburg, Miss…52nd USCT, Co.F
John Spotts: Vicksburg, Miss. 3rd USCT, Co. C
Essick Harrison: Camp Nelson, KY (no regiment or company listed)
Thomas Lourey: Burlington, KY (no regiment or company listed)
Caleb Linza: Camp Nelson, KY 124th USCT, Invalid Corps
In July, 1863, Vicksburg, Mississippi surrendered to Union troops and Camp Nelson was established as a Union supply station for strikes into Tennessee. These actions were followed by a deluge of refugees seeking freedom. The refugee camps often became recruitment centers.
As an interesting side note: Caleb Linza was given permission to enlist by his owner, George Brown. Linza was 72 years old!
Until next week, be well.