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The enslaved population of
Mississippi lived principally on large plantations along the Mississippi River.
In some of these plantation counties, blacks outnumbered whites 9 to 1. Settled
early by the French in the 1720s, which brutally squashed a rebellion of Natchez
Indians and slaves in 1726, the state functioned as the western terminus of the
domestic slave trade in the decades before the Civil War. The second largest
slave market in the lower South was located in Natchez. Thousands of slaves were
transported to the Natchez market for sale, and blacks in the upper South feared
being sold "down river" to Mississippi. Almost all the enslaved of Mississippi
worked in the backbreaking production of cotton as field hands. Several thousand
enslaved blacks lived in urban places such as Natchez, Jackson, Vicksburg, and
Columbus, where they were used as domestic servants or manual laborers. To
control the enslaved population, the state passed one of the region's harshest
slave codes, subjecting those accused of serious crimes to special courts and
severe punishment. Surprisingly, a few hundred blacks (1,366 in 1830) lived as
free men and women in the state, working mostly as skilled tradesmen and small
farmers. In the 1830s, at least a dozen free blacks were themselves
slaveholders. |
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Available Information on this Website:
- Black roots: a Lineage of
Surprises
Turns out not everyone is descended from African kings and Indian chiefs.
Once science gets involved in genealogy, even the proudest African-Americans may
turn out to be awash in European blood.
- Slave Narratives
From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South
were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works
Progress Administration (WPA). These former slaves, most born in the last years
of the slave regime or during the Civil War, provided first-hand accounts of
their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms. Their
narratives remain a peerless resource for understanding the lives of America's
four million slaves.
Available Resources Offsite:
African American Genealogy
Access Genealogy: The African
American records section provides extensive listings and information of
available free resources online for African American ancestral research across
the United States.
AfriGeneas
AfriGeneas is a site devoted to African American genealogy, to
researching African Ancestry in the Americas in particular and to
genealogical research and resources in general. It is also an African Ancestry
research community featuring the AfriGeneas mail list, the AfriGeneas message
boards and daily and weekly genealogy chats.
Mississippi
African American Griots
West African Griots are historians, storytellers, traditional praise singers and
musicians. Their roles are hereditary and their surnames identify them as
Griots. For example, Toumani Diabate of Mali comes from 70 generations of
Griots. His father, Sidiki Diabate was considered the “King of the Kora”
in Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Mali and The Gambia. When he died,
memorials were held in each of these countries, attended by foreign diplomats,
government officials and musicians. The most famous Griot in each of these
countries was chosen to preside over the memorials and to celebrate the life of
Sidiki Diabate by “singing his praises” and recounting his life story.
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