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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Historians have properly considered the period of sectional strife to be a germinal source of major determinative forces in American history. Yet, preoccupation with the Civil War and Reconstruction, their causes and consequences, has so dominated the interests of historians of the South that they may well have neglected or misunderstood many of the basic economic developments of the region.
Let us be more skeptical of the plausible and widely held assumptions that the war was responsible for the economic institutions of the New South or that radical Reconstruction can be held accountable for many of the major economic problems of the post-Reconstruction era. The primary purpose of this article is to treat in summary fashion the broad developments in one southern industry, developments which in themselves suggest that the time has arrived to study southern economic development for its own sake.
Editor's Note: This article was read as a paper at a session of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, Lexington, Kentucky, May 8, 1953. The ideas contained herein along with the sources upon which they are based are developed more fully in Sitterson, J. Carlyle, Sugar Country: The Cane Sugar Industry in the South, 1753-1950 (University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, Ky., 1953)Google Scholar. This article is printed here with the permission of the University of Kentucky Press.
1 De Bow's Review (New Orleans, 1846–1880), X (1850), 565; ibid., XXIX (1861), 523.
2 Based on data in the manuscript census returns, schedule IV, “Productions of Agriculture,” 1860 (Louisiana returns are at Duke University, Durham, N. C., and Texas returns are at the State Library, Austin, Texas).
3 Computed from the census returns.
4 Phillips, U. B., American Negro Slavery (New York, 1918), pp. 370–71.Google Scholar
5 It is manifestly impossible to cite here the vast body of plantation records and correspondence upon which the above is based. In the main, these collections are located at the following depositories: the state universities of Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas; Tulane University, New Orleans; and the City Archives, the Louisiana State Museum, and the Presbytere, New Orleans.
6 Martin Gordon, Jr., to Benjamin Tureaud, Feb. 23, 1850, Tureaud Collection (Louisiana State University).
7 Manuscript census returns, schedule IV, “Productions of Agriculture,” 1860.
8 Kenneth Clark to Lewis Thompson, 1855, Lewis Thompson Papers (University of North Carolina).
9 Planter's Banner (Franklin, La.), Jan. 2, 1851.
10 See “The Manufacture of Sugar” in Sugar Country, pp. 133–156.
11 The Weeks Collection (Louisiana State University), the Bringier Collection (Louisiana State University), and the McCollam Papers (University of North Carolina) present an excellent picture of marketing practices. See also Sitterson, J. Carlyle, “Financing and Marketing the Sugar Crop of the Old South,” in Journal of Southern History (Baton Rouge, 1935), X (1944), 188–99.Google Scholar
12 “Brief Reminiscences of the Life of an Ex-Overseer, Agent and Sugar Planter,” Louisiana Sugar Bowl (New Iberia, La.), Dec. 10, 1874.
13 New Orleans Price Current, Sept. 1, 1866; De Bow's Review, Series I, after the War (1866), 201; ibid., II (1866), 416; ibid., IV (1867), 237–38.
14 A. Franklin Pugh, Diary, Oct. 24, 1865 (Louisiana State University).
15 A. Franklin Pugh, Diary, Jan. 31, 1866 (University of Texas; some years of the diary are at Texas and some at Louisiana State University).
16 Louisiana Sugar Bowl, Jan. 17, 1878.
17 See especially Louisiana Sugar Bowl, 1870–1874, and A. Franklin Pugh Papers (University of Texas).
18 Louisiana Sugar Bowl, Feb. 22, 1872.
19 Ibid., Mar. 2, 1882.
20 Loc. cit.
21 Ibid., July, 1871-Sept. 1872, passim.
22 Bouchereau, Louis and Bouchereau, Alcée, Statement of the Sugar and Rice Crops Made in Louisiana (New Orleans, 1868–1916)Google Scholar, passim.
23 Abundant material on the above developments is contained in the Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer (New Orleans, 1888–1929).
24 Louisiana Sugar Planters' Association, Minutes, 1877–1890, passim (Louisiana State University).
25 Bouchereau, Statement of Sugar and Rice Crops, 1880–1910, passim.
26 Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, III (1889), 277.