A history of educational legislation in Mississippi from 1798 to 1860...

Front matter

PRESENTED BV

A HISTORY OF EDUCATIONAL LEGISLATION IN MISSISSIPPI FROM 1798 TO 1860

A DISSERTATION

Preface

In histories of education in the United States the southwest for the most part has been ignored. The historian sometimes has ascertained a few facts as to the educational history of Virginia and the Carolinas and has generalized from these for his statements as to the history of education in the southern states. The question may well be raised whether the educational history of Virginia and North Carolina applies to the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana with any greater degree of accuracy than the stories of the historical development of New England and New York apply to the states of Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. In the hope that he might supply some definite data toward the answer of this question, the author has undertaken this study of educational legislation in Mississippi prior to the Civil War.

The writer wishes to acknowledge his obligations to Dr. M. W. Jernegan for his critical reading of the manuscript and helpful suggestions, to Mr. F.W. Schenk, of the law hbrary of the University of Chicago, to Dr. Dunbar Rowland, director of the Department of Archives and History of Mississippi, to Mrs. W. F. Marshall, state librarian of Mississippi, and her assistant, Mrs. H. F. Broyles, for facilitating access to source material.

Introduction

This volume is the third of the monographs on the history of educational legislation of various states. The plan and purpose of these studies are set forth in the general introductions to be found in the first and second volumes of this series, entitled respectively, '' Educational Legislation and Administration in the State of New York from 1777 to 1850" and "The History of Educational Legislation in Ohio from 1803 to 1850." A comparison of the educational legislation of the three states in question well illustrates the wide variation in the origin and development of our state educational systems, and helps in understanding the problems involved in the development of a national system of education.

The history of the educational legislation of Mississippi is of peculiar interest for several reasons. Being one of the states of the New South, this legislation was influenced by two important factors, absent in the states of the Old South: first, the original settlers came principally from the back-country regions of the South Atlantic states, and secondly, they entered an environment which approached that of the New West, the region west of the Alleghanies. Both of these factors led to the development of a democratic, decentralized school system, designed to meet the special needs or demands of individual counties and even smaller units. As a result, we may observe the consequences of local self-government in education at the expense of an efficient centralized state system, based on general laws operative over the entire state.

Dr. Weathersby has set forth, for the first time, the entire legislation of Mississippi from 1798 to i860, and discussed the larger factors which account for this legislation. He has given a clear account of the relation of the national and state governments to elementary, secondary, and higher education. We call special attention to chapters iv, v, and xi. In the first we have a previously unwritten chapter on the method of handling the famous sixteenth section of land, granted by the national government for the support of public education. This may be compared with the methods adopted by Ohio. In chapter v, dealing with the numerous county systems set up between 1846 and i860, there is opportunity to study interesting examples of experimentation in the administration and support of public schools. In chapter xi we may study the

VIU

INTRODUCTION efforts of a southern and western state to develop the principle of state support, or aid, to education. Dr. Weathersby has also provided in Appendixes A and B invaluable material for studies involving a history of comparative educational legislation of the various states.

Marcus W. Jernegan

University of Chicago April 15, 1920

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Influences Affecting Educational Legislation in Mississippi i Pre-territorial history negligible. Sparseness of population. Homogeneous white race. Ideals and customs of immigrants. Occupations and manner of life. Inequality in the distribution of wealth. Inadequate means of communication and travel. Western idea of supremacy of the local community. Progressive public leaders. Influence of the federal land grants. Prosperity of the state. Favorable situation for the academies. A hindrance to higher education.

II. The General Tendencies and Characteristics of Educational Legislation in Mississippi before i860 . . 13

Chapter I Influences Affecting Educational Legislation In Mississippi

The colonial history of Mississippi left very little impress upon the later life of the territory and state. For all practical purposes history began in Mississippi only a few years before the representatives of the thirteen eastern colonies were signing the Declaration of Independence.

The country was explored by Hernando De Soto as early as 1540, and the Spanish adventurers spent about a year within the present borders of the state.' The .French in 1699 planted the first colony on the Bay of Biloxi, and about twenty years later settled three hundred colonists at Fort Rosalie, now Natchez, on the Mississippi River. But the latter settlement was surprised and massacred by the Natchez Indians in 1729, and thereafter Fort Rosahe, under the French, was merely a miUtary post." The French settlements on the gulf shore of Mississippi were little more than trade stations with scanty populations and never extended more than a few miles from the sea.

When Mississippi in 1763 became a part of the British province of West Florida, many of the French settlers removed to Louisiana. In the Natchez district, which was later to become the nucleus of Mississippi Territory, there was probably not a white settler. The first permanent settlement was made in this section in 1770, when eighteen families of immigrants located in and around the site of the present city of Natchez.^ These were the first of a stream of immigrants who began to pour in from the older colonies to the new British possession. Many of them were loyahsts, who sought to escape the embarrassment that was likely to ensue from the brewing trouble between the older thirteen colonies and the mother country. In 1772 three hundred persons from Virginia and the Carolinas were settled along the Mississippi, and three or four hundred families were expected before the end of the summer.^ These expectations probably were not fully realized, but several settlements were made at various points along the river front. By 1777,

' Riley, School History of Mississippi, p. 23.

'Hamilton, "British West Florida," Publication of the Mississippi Historical Society, VII, 399-426.

however, Natchez contained only ten log cabins and two frame houses, and we are told that the surrounding settlements numbered not more than seventy-eight families.'

All of the settlers in the Natchez district during the seventies were of EngUsh, Scotch, or Irish extraction, and practically all were from the colonies along the Atlantic. They brought with them British customs and institutions, more or less modified by their residence in the eastern colonies. By this time nothing recalled the previous French and Spanish explorations and attempts at colonization except an occasional name.^ The settlers instituted their own local government, for they were too far from Pensacola, the seat of British colonial authority, to keep in close touch with that government. Apparently the Pensacola authorities gave little attention to these western settlements, but we are informed that the people were well capable of handhng their own affairs and that good order prevailed.^

When the Spanish conquered British West Florida in 1779 and 1780, the people of the Natchez district submitted to the conquerors, but were still loyal to Britain. In 1781 they revolted, captured the Spanish garrison, raised the British flag, and awaited the expected assistance from the mother country. The revolt was quickly put down, and many of the settlers, fearing punishment from the Spaniards, fled from the country to the struggling thirteen states. The Spanish, however, accorded liberal treatment to those who remained, and especially favored the Irish settlers, who were Catholics.''

Very little Spanish immigration drifted into the Natchez district during the Spanish regime, and most that came seemed to be congregated in that portion of Natchez called "Spanish town.''^ The total population of the district, according to a census taken by the Spanish in 1780, was only 2,679.^ Toward the close of the Spanish period there was considerable immigration from Kentucky and Tennessee — American settlers, who came in anticipation of the surrender of the district to the United States. When, in 1798, the Spanish reluctantly gave way to American authority and the Mississippi Territory was organized, the total population could not have been much more than 5,000, mcluding slaves. Two years later, when the first United States census was taken,

1 Monette, History of the Mississippi Valley, I, 468.

5 Claiborne, Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State, I, 527.

* Monette, op. cit., p. 478.

INFLUENCES AFFECTING LEGISLATION 3

there were in the Natchez district 4,446 whites, 2,995 slaves, and 159 free colored persons.'

Mississippi Territory as originally organized was a long narrow strip between the thirty-first parallel of latitude and the line drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo River, extending from the Mississippi River on the west to the Chattahoochee River on the east. It included the southern portion of the present states of Mississippi and Alabama, but excluded the coastal regions of both. The territory was divided into three counties— Adams, Pickering and Washington— but only the first two had white settlements within the present state of Mississippi. Washington County, or the "Washington district" as it was frequently called, was for the most part in the possession of the Choctaw nation. The few white settlements were within the present limits of Alabama along the banks of the Tombigbee River.^

We have in a brief way traced the history of the Natchez country down to the beginning of the period we shall attempt to study. We have seen that the country was an uninhabited wilderness until within a few years of the organization of the territory, and that two years after the territorial government was set up the total population, including slaves, was only seven thousand. With these facts before us we need not be surprised that nothing had been accomplished toward pubUc education before the Spanish surrendered the country. If there were any schools, they were private institutions or under the control of the Catholic church, and no records of them have been available. As influences affecting the educational legislation in Mississippi, the French and Spanish are negligible.

It shall be our purpose in the succeeding paragraphs to discover some of the positive factors that have affected the educational history of Mississippi and that may help us to understand the facts revealed in the succeeding chapters.

Perhaps the most serious obstacle that confronted the people of Mississippi throughout the entire period that we shall study was the sparseness of population. When Governor Claiborne in 1802 made his recommendation for a "system of public education" and a "seminary of learning," he was addressing the representatives of a citizenship that in numbers would not make now a respectable rural county. By 1810 the population of the western half of the territory (the portion that was

'Rowland, The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi, 191 7, pp. 719-21.

' See map of Mississippi Territorj' in 1802 on p. 18.

to become the state of Mississippi in 1817) had increased to 31,306, of whom nearly one-half were slaves. Ten years later the United States census showed a population of 75,448.

Notwithstanding the increase of nearly 150 per cent in the population between 1810 and 1820, the significant fact confronts us that there was no increase in the density of population. The increase is accounted for in small part by the Florida annexation of 181 2, and more largely by immigration into new territory opened to settlers by treaties with the Indians. While the population of the territory increased nearly 150 per cent, Adams, the oldest and most densely settled county, showed an increase of only 20 per cent, and this small increase was wholly in slave population. There was an actual decrease of 250 in the white population of the county, and there was no decrease in the area of the county during the decade.'

If we study the census figures for the next decade we find that the same thing took place. The white population increased from 42,176 to 70,443. During the decade the central portion of the state, which was ceded to the United States by the Choctaws in 1820, was opened to white settlers. Into the new counties made from this cession went 23,266 white people out of the total increase of 28,266, leaving a gain of only 4,945 for all the older counties of the state.

Again in the next decade we find the same phenomenon for the third time. The population of the state showed a rapid increase between 1830 and 1840, rising to 179,074 whites. But again the increase went into territory newly opened and did not bring about an increase in density of population. The Choctaws in 1830 ceded what was left of their country to the federal government, and in 1832 the Chickasaws, also, gave up their lands. The two nations were removed to Indian Territory, thus opening the entire state of Mississippi to white settlers. A great tide of immigration flowed into the state. Nineteen new counties were created out of the Choctaw purchase, and ten from the Chickasaw purchase. In 1840 the white population of these twenty-nine new counties was 94,625, representing all but 4,449 of the 109,000 increase during the ten years.

It is apparent that the growth in population in Mississippi from 18 10 to 1840 is wholly explained by the occupation of new lands, and that

^ The figures in this and the succeeding paragraphs are from "Statistics for Mississippi," prepared especially by the United States Census Bureau for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and are to be found in convenient form in The Official aitd Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi, 191 7, pp. 719-24.

Indian Cession Map of Mississippi A— The Old Natchez District. D— Chickasaw Cession of 1816.

B— First Choctaw Cession, 1805. E— Second Choctaw Cession, 1820.

C— Florida Annexation, 181 2. F— Third Choctaw Cession, 1830.

G — Chickasaw Cession of 1832.

so far as white population is concerned, the state was as thinly settled in 1840 as it was in 1810.^ The apparent increase in density of population in the older counties, when the aggregate census figures are taken, is due to the rapid increase in the number of slaves, which had no more bearing upon the educational situation than the increase in live stock or any other form of property.

The full meaning of the sparseness of white population in Mississippi is brought out when we consider the density of population to the square mile and compare the figures with those for other states. In 1840 there were in Mississippi only 3.82 white persons to the square mile. There was a considerable increase in density during the two decades immediately following, but in i860 there were only 8. 19 persons to the mile. A comparison of these figures with the density of population in other new states of the west is given in Table I. These figures make it

TABLE I

A Comparison of Density of White Population in Certain Western States

State

Ohio

38.08

20.07

8.52

3.82

49-55 29.24

15-37 6.32

58-54

Indiana .

39.94

Illinois

30.89

Mississippi

8.19 evident that Mississippi had to deal with a factor that most seriously hindered her educational development.

The study of the population of Mississippi brings to our attention one fact that to some extent lessened the retarding effect of the sparseness of the population. In so far as racial origin is concerned, the people of Mississippi were from early territorial days a homogeneous group. After the organization of Mississippi Territory the Spanish and other foreign elements, which were concentrated chiefly in Natchez, rapidly disappeared.^ Perhaps the most noteworthy instance of transplanting old country ideals and customs into the new American territory is found in a small Scotch settlement in Wayne County. This community used the GaeHc language in their daily speech and in their

' The gradual extension of white settlements from the Natchez district over the entire area of the present state is indicated in the Indian Cession Map on p. 3, which is adapted from Riley's School History of Mississippi, p. 150.

^ Claiborne, op. cit., p. 530.

INFLUENCES AFFECTING LEGISLATION 7

school from its foundation in 1812 to 1820.' These Scotch-Americans, however, in their manner of life and social ideals were not antagonistic to American principles. As the number of English-speaking people around them increased they abandoned their dialect, mingled with the other settlers, and became the founders of the sturdy families of the McRaes, McArthurs, McDougalds, McLaughlins, McDaniels, McDonalds, and ^SIcLaurins.

The advantage that homogeneity of population brought to Mississippi was perhaps entirely counteracted by the educational ideals and customs that they brought with them. There was a sprinkling of settlers from the North and East, but the great bulk of immigration came from the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee.^ They had no acquaintance with public elementary schools, nor did they conceive public education to be a duty of the state. They were imbued with the ideals and customs of the Old South, and they brought these ideals and customs along with their families and slaves to the new Southwest. They did believe in education, but they conceived of that as a duty of the parent to his child. To be sure, if the parents were dead or too poor to educate the child, then, they thought, it was the duty of the state to stand in loco parentis.

The great obstacle to the development of a system of education found in the sparseness of the population was augmented by the manner of life and the occupations of the people. Except for the very early attempts to cultivate tobacco and indigo, the chief industry of Mississippi as a territory and as a state has been the production of cotton. It is not necessary to describe here in detail the cotton plantations with the one ''big house" of the master, the group of cabins occupied by the slaves, the broad acres of cultivated land, encircled by virgin forests, which shut off the plantation from the outside world and made it a little state of its own. The difficulty of placing schools so that they could serve the big plantations scattered along the creeks and rivers is apparent without comment.

In the southeastern counties, which did not produce much cotton, the situation was even less favorable. The inhabitants of these counties during the territorial period and early years of statehood were engaged chiefly in raising cattle, which lived on the "cane brakes" and coarse grass along the creeks. With stock-raising they combined the pursuit

' Wilkins, "Early Times in Waj'ne County," Publication of the Mississippi Historical Society, VI, 265-72.

* Census of the United States, The Eighth: i860, volume on "Population," p. 272.

of hunting.^ These counties throughout the period covered by this study were even more thinly settled than the others, had less wealth, and, apparently, less interest in educational matters.

The differences in occupation and in wealth of different sections was another retarding factor in the educational situation of the state. The "piny woods" counties of the southeast were next to the Natchez district in the order of settlement, but, on account of poverty of soil, they lagged considerably behind the other counties of the state in wealth and population. Furthermore until about 1840 there was always a frontier in Mississippi — a new country to be opened up and settled. Naturally, there was a considerable difference between the wealth of the new section and that of the old, the greater wealth being concentrated more or less in the older section of the state. This difference in wealth is reflected rather clearly in the ownership of slaves, for the entire state was almost exclusively agricultural. For instance in 1830, ten years from the date of the second Choctaw cession, the counties formed from this territory had acquired a population of 23,266, but had only 12,000 slaves. During the same decade the older counties, while they increased less than 5,000 in white population, added to their wealth by increasing the number of their slaves from 32,814 to 53,665. A decade later we find twenty-nine new counties formed from the Indian cessions of 1830 and 1832 with a population of about 95,000 owning less than 59,000 slaves, while the older counties with a white population of 84,000 own 136,000 slaves.^ That this difference of wealth persisted throughout our period is indicated by the figures in Table II. The table gives the white and slave population and the value of the manufactured products of three groups of counties in 1850. The first group is representative of the older cotton-producing counties; the second group of the new counties of northeast Mississippi; and the third group, of the "piny woods" or "white counties" of the southeastern part of the state.

There was a manifest tendency in these different sections of the state to assume different positions toward school matters. This tendency was due in part to the lack of easy means of communication between the different parts of the state. There were few highways in the state and few navigable rivers aside from the Mississippi. Before the coming of the railroads, travel was limited chiefly to the stagecoach and private horse-drawn vehicles. The early roads were little more than trails made by felling the forest trees to enable teams to pass through.

INFLUENCES AFFECTING LEGISLATION 9

In the preceding paragraphs the people of Mississippi have been pictured as typical southerners. In a sense they were, but there seems to have been one point of view or ideal which was acquired largely after they reached their new homes, and which seems to distinguish them from kinsmen and friends left behind in the Southern Atlantic states. This was the distinctly western idea of the supremacy of the

TABLE II*

Population, Slaves, and Manufactures in Fifteen Counties in 1850

Whites

Slaves

Value of Manufactured Products

Old cotton counties:

Adams

Jefferson

Claiborne

Wilkinson

New counties of the northeast:

Tippah

Tishomingo

Pontotoc

Lafayette

Itawamba

"Piny woods" {southeastern Mississippi)

Covington

Jones

Marion

Perry

Greene

19,651

61,212

9,382

61,694

19,362

1,114

2,195

4,970

280,550

$638,829

$ 85,497 67,250 61,205

125,365 34,090

$373,407

$ 16,637

* The figures were compiled for The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi of 1917 by the United States Census Bureau. See pp. 719-22, 734-35.

local community in government. It was that idea of democracy that meant the reservation to local bodies of all power that could possibly be exercised by them. This ideal is everywhere evident in the legislation on school matters. It manifests itself in the vast amount of permissive legislation which left the final decision on educational questions to local communities. Township control of -schools was preferred to county control. A great deal of the educational legislation is special legislation for individual townships, which evidently was initiated by the people, and often a provision for a referendum vote is contained in the acts.

It is clear that the development of any general system of publicly supported common schools, if it should be accomplished in Mississippi, must overcome numerous serious obstacles. There were from early territorial times, however, two important factors in the situation that were favorable to the establishment of common schools. One of these factors was the presence in Mississippi at all times of public leaders who were strongly in favor of a publicly supported system of schools. Scarcely had the new territorial government been organized before these people were memorializing Congress in the interest of education. On February 2, 1798, John Henderson and other citizens signed the first memorial of this kind, praying for aid from the general government to establish and support a regular ministry of the gospel and schools for the education of the youth.^ Most of the messages of the state and territorial governors from 1802 until the state was on the threshold of the Civil War contained recommendations for the improvement of the schools. Time and again these messages contained recommendations for a state tax for the support of common schools, and at least one governor made this question an issue in his successful campaign for his office.^

The other most influential factor favorable to the public schools was the decision of the federal government to extend its policy of granting public lands for the endowment of education to "the territory south of the state of Tennessee." The sixteenth section of each township was reserved for school purposes. By the time Mississippi had become a state many of these sections had attained a value that enabled the townships to build and partly support one or more common schools. In at least one township of the state a free school has been maintained constantly since 182 1 chiefly by funds derived from its sixteenth section.^ In most cases, however, the proceeds from school lands were not sufiicient to maintain a school, but they encouraged the idea of township schools, partly, if not wholly, supported by public funds.

After 1840 there was a distinct improvement in the school situation in the state. By this time the whole state had been settled and the new counties were as thickly populated as the old counties, and some of them more so. There was no longer a frontier in the state. The

' Claiborne, op. cit., I, 202.

Cluskey, Speeches, Messages, and Other Writings of A. G. Brown, p. 54. 3 Riley, op. cit., p. 174.

INFLUENCES AFFECTING LEGISLATION 1 1

density of the white population, as has been shown, increased between 1840 and i860 from 3.82 to 8. 19 to the square mile. The building of railroads and improvement of navigable streams provided better means of communication and travel, and thus brought the different sections of the state into closer contact. Small towns and hamlets sprung up along the railroads and at county seats, each with its common school, which was frequently the "primary department" of a town academy. Township and county funds were always desired and frequently obtainable to sustain or partly sustain these "primary departments." leaving usually small tuition rates to be paid by the parents to supplement the public funds. In these towns and villages the idea of public free schools found a favorable situation and made good headway.

Another favorable factor for the development of schools during the last two decades preceding the Civil War was the almost unbroken prosperity of the period. The panic of 1837 and financial distress that followed was a severe blow to the state, but the recovery was rapid. And this need not be surprising in view of Governor McNutt's statement in his inaugural address in 1838 that the annual exports of the sparsely populated state were one-sixth of those of the entire nation.^ Land values recovered from the blow of 1837 and gradually increased. The cotton crops of the state were abundant and usually brought fair prices. Year by year the size of the crop was increased and the number of slaves increased proportionately. The popular slogan seemed to be, "Make more cotton to get more money to buy more negroes to make more cotton," ad infinitum.^ The general prosperity of these ante-bellum days is reflected in the messages of the governors of the period. In 1850 Governor Matthews commented on the prosperous condition of the state and used it as a basis for his argument for a system of common schools supported by a state tax.^ Similarly, Governor McRae in 1858 said, "The growing wealth and increasing population of our state .... induces me to suggest to the Legislature the propriety of providing by law for the appointment of a State Superintendent of Public Instruction," etc.""

The situation in Mississippi during our period of study, as it has been set forth in these pages, was evidently more favorable for the growth of private academies and higher institutions of learning than for the development of a system of free elementary schools. As we shall see in a later chapter, the secondary schools were comparatively

' Ibid., p. 240. i Senate Journal, 1S50, pp. 20-21.

numerous, liberally supported, and, during seasons of prosperity, flourished vigorously in the state. The chief hindrance to these schools seems to have been the difficulty of securing competent teachers. There was so much more money to be made in farming than in teaching that it was practically impossible to obtain native teachers. Those imported were frequently not the best that the older states had, and sometimes were utterly incompetent and morally unfit.^ There were, howdver, a great many excellent teachers who came from other sections and founded schools that were great forces in the upbuilding of the state, but there was difficulty in keeping the men who came into the state from abandoning their profession for more lucrative employment. An interesting letter written by Rev. Morey of Mount Sylvan Academy in 1847 throws a side-light on this phase of the school situation. Writing to friends in the north concerning the prospects for northern teachers in Mississippi, he said:

Come determined to teach, not to speculate or marry; our places for golden investment are all occupied and our heiresses all engaged. Not to farm it or to preach; we know how to raise cotton better than you could, and we have a fair supply of preachers. Not to become politicians or lecturers on phrenology; the science of government is wonderfully well known here, and phrenology is not popular. In short, we need teachers, not peddlers, nor doctors, nor lawyers, nor literary pretenders.^