A New Plantation South: Land, Labor, and Federal Favor in Twentieth-Century Arkansas.

Smith, C. Calvin

A New Plantation South: Land, Labor, and Federal Favor in Twentieth-Century Arkansas, by Jeannie M. Whayne. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996. xvi, 324 pp. $39.50 cloth.

Arkansas at the turn of the century, when compared to the other states of the old Confederacy, lagged behind its neighbors in social, economic, and political development. This was especially true of the eastern part of the state, which was located in the fertile Mississippi Delta. The Arkansas Delta was a "wild and sickly" place during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The area contained huge tracts of virgin timber, almost impenetrable swamps, and much of the land was underwater for several months out of each year. In A New Plantation South, Professor Jeannie Whayne explores the social, economic, and political development of one of the largest, but undeveloped, counties in eastern Arkansas--Poinsett.

The efforts of emerging agri-businessmen to clear the timber from Poinsett County's virgin land, drain its swamps, and turn the improved land into fertile cotton plantations are detailed by Professor Whayne. Prominent among the emerging agri-businessmen in the Poinsett County Delta were the E. R. Ritter and W. B. Chapman families. These men were businessmen first and planters second. One of the strengths of this book is the excellent mini-biographies of these men, and other entrepreneurs, and their rise to power and influence in county and state government.

While tracing the rise to power of delta planters, Professor Whayne also discusses the cotton plantation system that they developed based upon crop liens, farm tenancy, and sharecropping. In early twentieth-century Arkansas the plantation system, compared to that of other Southern states, was not firmly established. The newness of the plantation system attracted poor black and white farmers from established plantations because the emerging plantations in Poinsett County offered them the maximum flexibility in determining their future. This was especially true for blacks. These black and white farmers often competed with one another for favorable contracts from the planters. Such competition often erupted into violence. Because blacks farmers were more easily exploited than white ones, planters generally favored blacks. Bands of white tenants, known as "whitecappers," who failed to receive favorable contracts from the planters often vented their disappointment on the black population through threats, night riding, home burnings, and mob violence. To protect what was essentially a pool of cheap black labor, local planters pressured local law enforcement officials to arrest and prosecute identifiable "whitecappers."

The Great Depression of the 1930s almost decimated delta planters. They were saved from ruin, however, by the agricultural programs of the New Deal, which favored large planters. The key to the planters' survival was the cotton-reduction program of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Under this program, planters were paid to take acreage out of production and share those payments with their tenants. The planters, however, routinely refused to share payments, opting to use them to modernize their operations through the purchase of new labor-saving equipment and, in the process, they forced the majority of the tenants off the land. Those tenants who managed to remain on the plantations became sharecroppers and day laborers who were caught in a vicious cycle of exploitation and poverty that continued well into the 1960s. The New South, consequently, was little different from the Old. The major difference was the change in name from slave labor to tenant farmer and sharecropper.

A New Plantation South is also the story of the political struggle between delta planters and small white farmers on Crowley's Ridge, where the courthouse was located. The two groups struggled for control of Poinsett County government. Harrisburg, the seat of county government , was located on the ridge where the land was more suitable for livestock and small-crop fanning. By comparison the city of Marked Tree, from which the planters operated, was located in the heart of the county's delta region and close to Memphis, Tennessee. Delta planters sought control for county government so that they could use it to develop drainage districts, build railroads and highways to the Memphis market and credit institutions, and facilitate overall growth of their community. Although the planters failed to move the seat of county government from Harrisburg to Marked Tree, the latter quickly outgrew the former in population and wealth. This, in fact, gave the planters de facto control of county government.

A New Plantation South is the culmination of meticulous research into a topic that has only recently come under historical analysis and scrutiny. It is well written and readers are left with little doubt about the author's focus. The book, however, is essentially a study of the socio-economic and political development of Poinsett County during the first half of the twentieth century. Its one major weakness is the author's failure to compare the plantation system of the Old South to what she describes as the system of the New South. Such a comparison would have allowed readers to see what was new or unique about the developing plantation system in the Arkansas Delta during the early twentieth century. That weakness, however, does not diminish the overall quality and value of the book. When the literature on Arkansas history, especially the period covered in this study, is reviewed it contains a great chasm. This study is an extremely valuable contribution toward filling the chasm in Arkansas history. It is also a "should read" for anyone interested in Arkansas history or Southern agricultural history.