Builders of a New South: Merchants, Capital, and the Remaking of Natchez, 1865–1914

Summary and Conclusion

214 Summary and Conclusion the trajectory of the business careers and social interactions of these ten mercantile families reveals much about the social and economic conditions that existed in the postwar Natchez District of Mississippi and Louisiana, and the changing economic demographics of the New South. The emergence of the postbellum merchant class as the new socioeconomic elite of the Natchez District was a complex process over time that actually had its roots in the antebellum period. The postwar explosion of mercantile influence was predicated on a host of factors converging at just the right time, in the right way, to elevate a formerly second-tier social and economic group to first-citizen status. The new merchant elite was comprised of a diverse combination of initially dissimilar social and economic communities, which, as the postwar period progressed, became more alike, increasingly intermarried, and formed new social, political, and business configurations that crossed former social and ethnic lines and were indicative of larger socioeconomic changes sweeping the nation. The emerging merchant elite made much of their advance at the expense of the formerly dominant planter class, but never completely replaced the local gentry. Instead, in a twist of irony, the sons of the planter and the merchant alike were becoming more similar. “Planter ” and “merchant” increasingly became “businessman” of the New South. Both classes found their social and economic fate intimately intertwined and firmly tied to the unequal system of labor and credit that was built on the backs of freed blacks. From the very beginning the planters and the merchants were never that far separated in social or economic terms. The Natchez District was first settled and built as a colonial trading center dominated by merchants, not planters, long before cotton agriculture made its appearance in the 215  Summary and Conclusion district. Even as slaves were introduced to the area and first indigo and then cotton agriculture became the primary and most successful economic endeavor in the region, several initial planter fortunes and family dynasties were built largely by mercantile pursuits, not planting wealth. Many leading early planters entered into the mercantile arena just to supply their own needs on the American frontier. After Mississippi achieved statehood and the antebellum period was in full swing, the importance of the merchant class remained, if somewhat overshadowed by the blinding success of planters and the accumulating fortunes found locally. The explosion of the Mississippi River trade, by flatboat and then steam packet, made Natchez perhaps the most important regional center in the Old Southwest, ensuring the continued importance of the local mercantile trade. As the antebellum period progressed, several large mercantile houses and cotton-factoring firms developed locally and rivaled those of New Orleans. In contrast, a growing cadre of middle-class and bourgeoisie traders began to develop and increasingly influence local city politics, social circles, and urban economic life. The influx of immigrants during the 1840s and 1850s greatly added to this growing class of indigenous middling traders with eager and shrewd German Jewish, Irish, Italian, and other foreign-born merchantmen who learned their mercantile trade in the European tradition. These elements of the growing bourgeoisie were not on the same level as the vaunted planters on the eve of the Civil War, but many had substantial worth, property, and numbers of slaves. This middle-class element would, in combination with energetic newcomers, build the new merchant elite of the postwar era. The coming of the Civil War forever changed the social and economic composition of the district and created the conditions that provided postwar mercantile success. The war and ensuing blockade quickly destroyed the supply chains and credit sources emanating from New Orleans and elsewhere, and early Union success on the Gulf Coast ensured that both planters and merchants alike were stressed to their limits as early as 1862. While a handful of local merchants eked out a living as smugglers or purveyors of scarce goods at a premium, the first two years of war largely destroyed the large local cotton commission houses and plantation supply firms, particularly those with strong planter-class ties and large amounts of capital tied up in land and slaves. The Union occupation of the Natchez District in mid-1863 marks the pivotal point of change: once local slaves were freed, the character of the marketplace was irrevocably changed in 216  Summary and Conclusion the merchants’ favor. Blacks had...