January 30, 2011 Natchez – Ah, those cotton pickin’ days.

Natchez, Mississippi.   In the Pasadena elementary schools we sang a lot of Steven Foster songs, and I can’t help doing that as we pass huge plantation homes with occasional glimpses of the Mississippi and paddlewheel boats – even if the boats are now casinos and they only move when nudged by hurricanes.

We stay in the very nice Natchez State Park CG on the outskirts, still in a drizzle, and explore this tidy town of maybe 12,000. It still looks reasonably prosperous and in the 1800s it was the social center for great cotton wealth. Many plantation homes survive, and we visited Melrose Estate, now managed by the National Parks.

Marcia learns about Natchez.

Melrose Estate

Punkahs - child slaves pulled the rope to power the fan.

This immense home of 16000 square feet of living space (excluding huge attic and basement, outbuildings, and slave quarters) was owned by a lawyer who also owned several cotton plantations miles from Natchez. This was typical of these plantation owners – many rarely saw their cotton fields. Natchez was where they lived, in a social whirl competing with other plantation owners. Slaves were kept in nice looking white-painted quarters, as it reflected on the owners, but inside the buildings life was more primitive. Life was never this good on the cotton plantation, which a man’s neighbors would not likely see.

Montrose was constructed in 1845 and sold at the end of the Civil War as cotton farming became uneconomical with the end of slavery. It was staffed by 25 slaves, and the slave privy is a 16-holer. Not a bad ratio, no reason to linger. For the most part Montrose stayed in the same family after the war until purchased by the National Parks, so around 85% of the furnishings are original.

We like the punkah, a large hinged decorated fan blade above the dining table that would have been operated by child slaves pulling on ropes. These fixtures on well-to-do plantation owner homes.

William Johnson house - a former slave that became very successful.  Owned a Dodge  just like ours.

We also tour the house of William Johnson, a mulatto freed by his owner (and likely father) at the age of 11. He became very successful, eventually owning several barber shops, a public bath, a plantation, and slaves. A neighboring mulatto in a property line dispute murdered him at the age of 41. The witnesses were all blacks or mulattos, and Louisiana law did not permit the admission of evidence from blacks if the accused was white. The neighbor convinced the court he was an Indian/white mix and escaped conviction; later it came out he had no white blood.

We enjoy dinner that night "under the hill" as the fog moves in.  We have no luck at the casino.