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Chapter 2 Piney Woods and Plantations Tlmtory of ogciculture in antebdlum Alabama is generally portrayed as being synonymous with the history of cotton planting. Though cotton cultivation obviously dominated the attention of more and more agriculturists as the first half of the nineteenth century progressed, livestock raising continued to play an integral role in Alabama agriculture. The shape and significance oflivestock raising were affected by numerous factors: region, socioeconomic status, and location in time. Alabama's cattle raisers, for instance, differed in many ways from region to region and from farm to farm over the halfcentury in question . A few historians have considered the importance of Alabama's and the South's antebellum cattle herders. Frank L. Owsley, John D. W. Guice, Terry G. Jordan, and John Solomon Otto view antebellum cattle raising • 13 • • 14 • PINEY WOODS AND PLANTATIONS as a dynamic process influenced by geography, settlement, and population growth. These historians accept a modified version of Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier herder thesis, though they build on Owsley's recognition of a permanent herder class in the southern backwoods, or inner frontiers. In so doing, these historians generally conclude that livestock raisers occupied frontier areas throughout the state in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries but began to find their ranges significantly depleted by cotton farmers and planters as settlers flooded Alabama. By 1840, Owsley observes, the h~rdsmen had been driven from the better farming lands by growers of cotton.l Other historians, such as Grady McWhiney, Forrest McDonald, and Eugene D. Genovese, tend to see cattle raisers and raising as static elements of antebellum society. McWhineyand McDonald find the southern herder in significant numbers throughout the regions of the South up to the Civil War. McWhineyattempts to refute Owsley's observation of a declining livestock herder culture and industry in antebellum Alabama. He stresses the continuity of the herdsman throughout the antebellum era and credits the Civil War with the devastation of the state's herding culture and industry.2 Historical evidence for Alabama appears to weigh in favor of the first group. Alabama's antebellum cattle industry changed continually throughout the period, growing in some areas and retreating in others. Owsley's observation that the encroachment of cotton growers pushed livestock raisers into the "inner frontiers" remains a plausible and valuable element of any thesis concerning the subject. In addition to the expansion of cotton cultivation , the shifting offrontiers and the growth of the Texas cattle kingdom threatened the future of open-range herding in Alabama and rendered traditional cattle raising a weakened and declining practice by the start of the Civil War. McDonald and McWhiney identify three groups oflivestock raisers in the antebellum South: planters, yeoman farmers, and herders or drovers. These three groups raised cattle in all sections of the state before the Civil War. Yeomen around the state usually maintained at least one milk cow for family use. Some small farmers also turned out a few head of cattle to graze on the open range. These cattle were used either for beefor as an occasional cash sale to a traveling drover. Planters generally maintained herds of cattle • IS • PINEY WOODS AND PLANTATIONS for plantation uses. As we shall see, many planters increased the quality and number of their herds in the late antebellum period.3 Much recent historical literature follows the trail of the antebellum southern herder, a pre-Civil War cattleman. Though the herder could be found in the different regions ofAlabama, his ·domain was unquestionably the upland piney woods stretching across the southern part ofthe state. The earliest days of the nineteenth century likely saw significant numbers of cattle herders in the mountain valleys, the Tennessee Valley, the Piedmont, and the Black Belt. The steady encroachment of cotton-planting settlers in the fifty years before the Civil War pushed livestock raisers into Owsley's "inner frontiers." Hogs became the primary products of hill and mountain growers, while cattlemen generally found the piney woods more to their liking. Perhaps it is a bit misleading, however, to speak of the herders as being driven deep into the barren piney woods. For many cattlemen the piney woods offered an ideal environment for herding. The warm climate eliminated the need for winter shelter, and the tall pine forests with little undergrowth provided better than adequate range pasture. Furthermore, swamp and river-bottom cane brakes provided valuable winter forage. Tradition also played an important role in the piney woods cattle industry. Not only had French...

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