Hog Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840-1860

6. Beefsteaks and buttermilk

6 Beefsteaks and buttermilk The student of the antebellum South, whose task it is to study, interpret, and present the character of the area, faces some challenging tasks. Not the least among them is the assessment of the importance of cattle in the economy of the area. Many have wrestled with the problem, and while various answers have been suggested, the question remains essentially unanswered. Agricultural data for the three census years prior to the CivilWar show that large numbers of animals existed throughout the entire South, but paradoxically, much of the nineteenth-century literature suggests a shortage of work animals and livestock products in some areas.1 Considering this apparent contradiction between a surfeit of animals and a shortage of animal products, a number of questions present themselves. Where were the large numbers of cattle? How effective were they in supplying southern subsistence needs? What role did they play in the region's economy? The existence of a grazing economy in the South Atlantic states during the late eighteenth century is fairly well recognized and needs little elaboration.2 Cattle were grazed over much of the Carolinas and Georgiaand were especially numerous on the wiregrass pastures of the pine forests and swamp prairies of the coasts. Moreover, this early woods-ranching had its counterparts in the Spanish lands of Florida and French Louisiana.3 With the opening of land in the interior South to white settlers and its accompanying expansion of settlement came an increase in cattle numbers. Spreading from the core grazing areas were numbers of cattlemen who moved onto the newly opened land with their herds. In addition, thousands of animals moved into the area as property of the farmers and planters taking up new land. Most migrating settlers took a few animals with them as they moved, and many continued to import stock from the hill 113 Beefsteaks and buttermilk 113 states even after they were well settled.4 This spread of cattle from the Atlantic seaboard states, the French and Spanish grazing areas, and the hill country into the remaining parts of the South continued through the eighteenth century and, indeed, well into the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Another factor in the spread of cattle, though a minor one, was the Indian. The "civilized tribes" in the South were quick to adopt white customs, and it is likely that Indian owned cattle were numerous. Manyof these ran wild and became completely feral, merging into the existing forest fauna to be hunted and shot like game by the earliest white settlers.5 Apparently, the conditions were similar to that of the Atlantic states during the eighteenth century. Stories of "wild cattle" were common in writings during the colonial period; for example, Peter Kalm was told of "wild cows which exist in Carolina, and other provinces to the south."6 This spread of cattle, both domestic and feral, continued during the first decades of the nineteenth century until cattle were well established in all parts of the South. So complete was the spread of cattle that they were noted by observers in all parts of the area. Travelers' accounts and other contemporaryreports almost invariably comment (often with surprise) upon the large numbers of cattle encountered. Furthermore, these reports extend from the very early period up to the Civil War and include most of the Gulf South from the Carolinas to Texas including Florida.7 Cattlewere especially numerous in relation topopulation in the southern portions of the Gulf South and were the basis for a fairly large-scale herding economy. Huge herds were seen by travelers in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana , and there are reports of single herders owning hundreds or even thousands of cattle.8 The first census data on livestock numbers, though less reliable than one might wish, are available for 1840, and they tend to substantiate the nonstatistical reports of large numbers of cattle . In total numbers cattle in southern states compared quite favorably with those of other parts of the nation, and in per capita figures the area was outstanding. Allsouthern states were among the nation's leaders in cattle per capita in 1840 and, while the per capita figures declined in the next two decades, they ranked quite high relative to the eastern states up until the Civil War (table 6). Dot maps, based on the censuses of 1840 and 1860, indicate a H4 6. Number of...