The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1875-02-12
THE BLACK BELT OF MISSISSIPPI.
What the Negroes DO Where they Pro.
pOnderate In Population.

Vicksburg is the center Of the Africa
of America. The cityis the largest ii
the State, and the county seat of Warren
county. Yet the total white population
in city and county in 1870 was only z.
907, or a number that would not be con
sidered excessive in an ordinary Ohio
township The black population was
1882, which has been largely increased
by the constant flow of country negroes
from the great interior to Vicksburg.
The next county above here is Issa-
quena. The readers will hardly believe
me when L state the population as re-
turned in the census four years ago. II
is, white TAI, black 6,146l What do you
think of large county which contains
but seven hundred and forty-one white
men, women and children1 Yet these
few whites own, nearly if not quite
every foot ofground in the-county, and
pay nineteen-twentieths of all the taxes.
Owning the soil, they actually have no
voice whatever in the affairs of govern
ment, To be sure they can vote, but
what do one hundred votes amount to,
when covered up by one thousand black
yotesl The negroes fill all the offices
with negroes, and pile on the taxes with
out remorse. Colonel Gordon Ames
tells me that in one of those heavy negro
counties they have actually got the taxes
up to eleven and half per cent. What
agricultural country on earth can stand
one-half such taxes, OF one-fourth9 In
Kinds county, just back of Warren, the
taxes have been gradually increased from
SO 80 on the 81, 900 of valuation in 1868
to $24 this year. And almost in exact
proportion as they go up the price of.
property goes down, except on the as
sessment rolls. The assessments are
kept up nicely. Colonel Adams tells me
he has fee of 80, 500 against planta-
ton worth 100000 in gold before the
war, yet he cannot enforce the collection
without running the parties interested.
Rural property is not half, and, in many
instances, not one-fourth as valuable
as in the year after the war. The man
who understands these things, and then
complains that the whites arenot as mild
as doves, forgets that they are human
But to return to population. The
county just above this, as l have sworn,
has q negro population of nearly ten to
one. The next county above that,
Washington, has a white population of
9, ,164, and black population of u, ,4O5.
This is the "black belt" indeed. Yazoo
county, back of Isaquena, has a white
population of 1884, and a black popula-
ton of 1896. Kinds is white, 1896
and black, 20,659. Claiborne, Just
south of Warren, has white 1890; black,
1896. The next county, Jefferson, has
white, 3,215; and black, 1886.
These countieshe immediately around
Vicksburg, and you can readily under
tempt to do, if they were bloody-minded !
But they are not. Whatever may be |
their faults, they are docile, and in that
sense inoffensive. During the fight
here it was telegraphed over the United
States that the negroes were burning
giD-houses and barns in retaliation. |
They did no such thing. 1 cannot learn
that the negroes have destroyed a dol
Lars worth of property. If they wanted
to they could take revenge in this way
for all wrongs, real and imaginary. But
they do not and will not. Whatever
their faults may be, they are not reveng-
full and blood-thirsty. In all the troub-
les here, they have not, in single in
stance, harmed the hair of white per-
sons head in the unprotected rural dis
tnicts. When you hear that they are
attempting to take revenge on the
whites in any such way put it down as
a lie. There is no race on earth naturally
so peaceably inclined and inoffensive as
the negroes. Cincinnati Commercial.