Madison County, Florida--1830 to 1860: A Case Study in Land, Labor, and Prosperity

Abstract

For several decades, scholars, such as Donnie D. Bellamy, John S. Otto, John M. Price, Lyle Dorsett, and others have done studies that focus on slavery from a local perspective. This work continues that tradition. From 1821 to 1860, several Florida counties experienced a brief period of prosperity. These counties, located in the fertile Middle Florida Cotton Belt, had a profound impact on the economic, political, and social development of Florida, and on the course of slavery in the state. Madison was one such county. It was created in 1827, and along with four other counties that stretched between the Apalachicola and Suwannee rivers, comprised Middle Florida. They accounted for over seventy-five percent of all slaves in the state by 1860.(1) However, the overall development of these particular counties raises questions about slavery and antebellum life. By examining Madison County, this study attempts to answer several questions: (1) Who settled in Madison during the antebellum period? (2) Was the typical Madison resident a slaveholder by 1860?; (3) Who controlled the economic, political, and social institutions in the County? and (4) How did slaves respond to their bondage? Answers to these questions will reveal important aspects of the historical formation of this antebellum community, and focus on those individuals largely responsible for its overall development. During the territorial period from 1821 to 1845, Florida experienced a steady influx of migrants. Leaving the more established Southern states of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia in search of cheap land, many of the inhabitants who arrived in the territory during this period were of English descent. A few were slaveholders. For example, twenty-eight men had purchased large tracts of land in Madison for $1.25 per acre by 1830.(2) Three had bondsmen with them. By the time of statehood in 1845, migrants of English, French, Irish, and Scot-Irish descent had purchased large tracts of land on which to grow staple crops in the county. During the territorial and statehood periods, Madison became, indeed, one of the fastest growing counties in Florida.(3) The agricultural growth of Madison and its citizens' intense desire to purchase large tracts of land can be understood within the larger context of the institution of slavery. Although blacks were in the territory long before Florida became a part of the United States or Madison became a county, the first official record of their existence in the county is in 1830 as Table 1 shows. Yet, whites slightly outnumbered blacks from 1840 to 1850, but, by 1860, as in all of the Middle Florida counties, blacks outnumbered their white counterparts. As the increasingly large number of blacks would indicate, it was a reflection of white will and ambition to acquire bondsmen and to become upwardly mobile slaveholders. Table 1. Population of Madison County, 1830 - 1860 YEAR WHITES % FREE BLACKS % SLAVES % TOTAL 1830 262 49.90 0 0.00 263 50.10 525 1840 1,442 54.54 0 0.00 1,202 45.46 2,644 1850 2,802 51.04 0 0.00 2,688 48.96 5,490 1860 3.521 45.26 9 0.12 4,249 54.62 7,779 Sources: Fifth Census; or Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States, 1830 (Washington, DC, 1832), 156-159; Sixth Census; or Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States, 1840 (Washington, DC, 1841), 454-544; Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (Washington, 1853), 400-401; Population of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census (Washington, DC, 1865), 50-54. As Table 2 indicates, 33 percent or 14 families out of 43 owned at least one slave in 1830. Seventy-one percent of those owning slaves had fewer than 20. Slaveholding wealth was not concentrated in the hands of a slave aristocracy, but distributed among residents who held fewer than 19 slaves. …