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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2015
In 1860, unfenced land across the South was open to the public. No state criminalized trespass, and the range was closed in only part of one county. Elsewhere, some states had closed the range, but most unfenced land in the United States was open to the wanderer. In the former Confederacy, fresh elections were held in 1865, and legislatures moved quickly to criminalize trespass, restrict hunting and fishing, and close the range.
1. The open range required farmers to fence livestock out or bear the inevitable losses from wandering livestock. In contrast, the closed range required owners to fence their livestock in or compensate farmers for their losses.
2. Hahn, Steven, “Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging: Common Rights and Class Relations in the Postbellum South,” Radical History Review 26 (1982): 37–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Hahn, Steven, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850–1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
4. Kantor, Shawn EverettPolitics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Range in the Postbellum South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998)Google Scholar. See also Kantor, Shawn Everett and Kousser, J. Morgan, “Common Sense or Commonwealth? The Fence Law and Institutional Change in the Postbellum South,” Journal of Southern History 59 (1993): 201–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Act of March 7, 1788, 1788 N.Y. Laws 748, 766 (allowing each town to set rules “permitting or preventing” livestock to “go at large”).
6. Also, Louisiana continues to allow parishes to open or close the range. La. Rev. Stat. § 33:1236.
7. King, J. Crawford Jr., “The Closing of the Southern Range: An Exploratory Study,” Journal of Southern History 48 (1982): 53–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. Hahn, “Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging.”
9. Flynn, Charles L. Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth-Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983)Google Scholar, 84. Unlike King, Hahn, and Kantor, Flynn's study included labor and lien law. Ibid., 86–92.
10. Kantor, Politics and Property, 69–70. Kantor acknowledged that fencing cost did not explain game or trespass laws. Ibid., 123–24.
11. Ludeke, John, “The No Fence Law of 1874: Victory for San Joaquin Farmers,” California History 59 (1980): 98–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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13. “Nigger in the Woodpile,” Georgetown (S.C.) Times, January 11, 1905, 1.
14. Land values best predict the geographical pattern of slavery. Wright, Gavin, “Slavery and American Agricultural History,” Agricultural History 77 (2003): 527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15. Immigrants demanded higher wages and better working conditions. Planters would not pay the $25 per month demanded by immigrant labor. Letter from J.R.T., Pike Co., Ga., Southern Cultivator 28 (1870): 379.
16. “The Farmers: Last Day's Session of Agricultural Society,” Atlanta Constitution, August 16, 1883, 1 (address by Dr. S.W. Leland, Cartersville, Ga.).
17. Nordhoff, Charles, The Cotton States in the Spring and Summer of 1875 (New York: D. Appleton, 1876)Google Scholar, 102.
18. “The Labor Question,” Southern Planter and Farmer 32 (November 1872): 671Google Scholar.
19. Penningroth, Dylan C., The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003)Google Scholar. Archeological evidence confirms that slaves supplemented their diet with wild food. Otto, John S., “A New Look at Slave Life,” Natural History 88 (1979): 20.Google Scholar
20. Covey, Herbert C. and Eisnach, Dwight, What the Slaves Ate: Recollections of African-American Food and Foodways from the Slave Narratives (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press, 2009), 113–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21. Litwack, Leon F., Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (New York: Knopf, 1979)Google Scholar, 393.
22. For example, Ala. Code § 1018 (1852). See also Parsons, Theophilus, Law of Contracts 1 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1857)Google Scholar, 341.
23. Guardian of Sally v. Beaty, 1 S.C.L. (1 Bay) 260 (1792); and White v. Cline, 52 N.C. (7 Jones) 174 (1859).
24. La. Civil Code. art. 175 (1825).
25. Letter from A Farmer, Macon (Ga.) Weekly Telegraph, June 4, 1869, 4.
26. Leigh, Frances Butler, Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation (London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1883)Google Scholar, 124. She lamented the “well-known fact that you can't starve a negro.” Ibid.
27. “The Future of Young Africa!” The Land We Love 5:6 (October 1868): 525Google Scholar.
28. Letter from W.F. Robert, near Grahamville, S.C., Southern Cultivator 28 (1870): 15 (emphasis in original).
29. Giltner, Scott E., Hunting and Fishing in the New South: Black Labor and White Leisure after the Civil War (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2008), 29–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30. Pollard, Thomas: “Agriculture in the South: Will Farming in the South Pay?” in American Farmer; Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture etc. 2 (Baltimore: S. Sands, 1883): 333–34Google Scholar. Pollard had been the Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture.
31. Letter from C.S.T., Fluvanna County, Va. “The Labor Question,” Southern Planter and Farmer 38 (1877): 94.Google Scholar
32. Davis, Ronald L.F., “Labor Dependency Among Freedmen, 1865–1880,” in From Old South to the New: Essays on the Transitional South, ed. Fraser, Walter J. Jr. and Moore, Winfred B. Jr. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981)Google Scholar, 162, 165.
33. Flynn, White Land, Black Labor, 120 (quoting John Horry Dent).
34. “The Labor Question,” Southern Planter and Farmer 32 (1872): 671.Google Scholar
35. Burton, Vernon, “Race and Reconstruction: Edgefield County, South Carolina,” Journal of Social History 12 (1978): 36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36. “The Future of Young Africa!” The Land We Love 5 (1868): 528.Google Scholar
37. Beech Island, S.C., “Worm Fences and Stock Pens,” Rural Carolinian 2 (1871): 381.
38. Letter from X.X., Southern Home and Farm 3 (1872): 90–91.
39. Letter from N.H. Davis, Long River, S.C., Rural Carolinian 2 (1871): 593–94.
40. Letter from W.H.B., Greensboro, Ga. Southern Cultivator 25 (1867): 172.
41. Joint Resolution of August 26, 1872, 1872 Ga. Laws 529.
42. William H. Trescott, writing to South Carolina Governor James L. Orr, December 1865, quoted in Burton, “Race and Reconstruction,” 36.
43. For example, Ala. Code (1852).
44. M'Conico v. Singleton, 9 S.C.L. (2 Mill Const.) 244 (1818).
45. Granting the landowner a monopoly led to underuse, whereas open access may produce overuse if the local population is dense. Open access eliminates the cost of transacting with each landowner. Because these costs were large, it was reasonable to believe that open access was more efficient than landowner monopoly.
46. Act of December 20, 1865, no. 11, 1865 La. Acts 16 (Extra session).
47. Act of February 23, 1866, no. 248, 1865–66 Ga. Laws 237.
48. Act of December 21, 1866, no. 4802, § 7, 1866 S.C. Acts 405, 406. Entry was held to take its ordinary meaning, not its technical meaning of taking possession. State v. Cockfield, 49 S.C.L. (15 Rich.) 53 (1867) (upholding an indictment for visiting an ill sister).
49. Act of February 2, 1866, ch. 60, 1866 N.C. Public Laws 123, 123–124 (Special session).
50. Ala. Penal Code § 16 (1866) (prepared by George Washington Stone and John Wesley Shepherd), adopted by Act of February 23, 1866, no. 114, 1865–66 Ala. Laws 121. The provision was preserved in subsequent revisions. Ala. Code § 4419 (1876).
51. Act of January 15, 1866, ch. 1466, no. 3, § 16, 1865 Fla. Laws 23, 26.
52. Hammond, E.S., Starke, Wm. Pinkney, and Whattey, Thos. W., Committee of the Beech Island Farmers' Club, “Fencing Stock vs. Fencing Crops,” Rural Carolinian 2 (1871): 516.Google Scholar
53. Another seven states prohibited violating the game laws on another's land without permission. Tober, James A., Who Owns Wildlife? The Political Economy of Conservation in Nineteenth-Century America (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981), 122–23.Google Scholar
54. Act of November 27, 1865, ch. 63, 1865 Miss. Laws 209 (Regular Session).
55. Act of January 15, 1866, ch. 1466, no. 3, § 19, 1865 Fla. Laws 23, 27. Again, the penalty was thirty-nine lashes.
56. Act of March 23, 1875, ch. 101, 1875 Tenn. Public Acts 183.
57. Damaging fences and leaving gates open were proscribed also. Act of January 21, 1875, 1874–75 Ark. Acts 91.
58. Act of May 2, 1874, ch. 148, 1874 Tex. Gen. Laws 201.
59. Act of March 31, 1876, ch. 56, § 9, 1876 Miss. Laws 49, 51.
60. Act of March 24, 1875, ch. 127, § 7, 1875 Tenn. Public Acts 213, 214–15.
61. N.C. Code ch. 16, § 4 (1854), preserved in N.C. Code ch. 56, § 1 (1873).
62. Heywood, Frank A., “North Carolina Game Region,” Forest and Stream 37 (1891): 308.Google Scholar
63. Act of December 1, 1865, ch. 54, §§ 1, 6, 1865 Miss. Laws 199, 200.
64. For example, Charles Hallock, “Wild Cattle Hunting on Green Island,” Harper's (1860): 21.
65. Act of December 1, 1865, ch. 54, §§ 3, 4, 1865 Miss. Laws 199, 200 (Regular session).
66. Act of February 21, 1867, ch. 197, 1867 Miss. Laws 270 (Called session).
67. In 1870, only four of the sixteen counties were less than three-fifths black, whereas one county was more than nine-tenths black.
68. Act of May 23, 1870, ch. 264, 1870 Miss. Laws 599.
69. Act of July 5, 1870, ch. 108, 1869–70 Tenn. Public Acts 168 (2d session).
70. Act of March 24, 1875, ch. 114, 1875 Tenn. Public Acts 204.
71. Kantor, Politics and Property Rights, 123–24.
72. Act of February 11, 1889, no. 244, 1888–89 Ala. Laws 335 (requiring hunters have landowner permission in Lowndes and Calhoun counties and parts of Macon County). In 1890, the population of Lowndes County was 86% black and Calhoun was 77% black. Macon was only 29% black.
73. Act of February 18, 1891, no. 584, 1890–91 Ala. Laws 1343 (requiring hunters have landowner permission in seven counties and parts of two more). In 1890, the counties ranged from 48% to 84% black with a mean value of 71%.
74. Va. Code ch. 101, § 2 (1860). In three counties, hunters needed landowner permission to hunt within 5 miles of navigable tidal water. Ibid., § 4.
75. Act of February 20, 1866, ch. 93, 1865–66 Va. Acts 202.
76. Amelia County Court Order Book (hereinafter CCOB) 45, reel 191 (July 26, 1866), 588; Greensville CCOB 12, reel 17 (July 2, 1866), 272; and Nottoway CCOB 1, reel 20 (May 3, 1866), 55. In 1870, Amelia, Greensville, and Nottoway counties were 69%, 66%, and 76% black, respectively. In contrast, the median Virginia county was only 45% black.
77. “Hunting and Fishing,” Staunton (Va.) Spectator, October 16, 1866, 2.
78. Act of February 2, 1825, 1824 La. Acts 62 (1st session) (policy jury can punish “trespasses by hunters in closes or lands fenced in”). The civil code uses slightly different language. La. Civ. Code § 3378 (1825) (“proprietor of a tract of land may forbid any person from entering it for the purpose of hunting therein”).
79. Opelousas (La.) Courier, December 6, 1879, 1; Alexandria (La.) Democrat, November 28, 1883, 3; and Abbeville (La.) Meridonal, January 1, 1887, 3.
80. Letter from N.A.T., Palestine, Tex., Forest and Stream 20 (1883): 87.
81. Resolutions of the Virginia Fish and Game Protective Association adopted on June 15, 1877, The Southern Planter and Farmer 38 (1877): 474Google Scholar.
82. Giltner, Hunting and Fishing, 151.
83. Ibid., 164.
84. Even so, opponents decried game laws as “offensive, aristocratic, unrepublican, European”; game laws would make “the rich richer, and the poor poorer.” Robinson, Solon, Facts for Farmers 1 (New York: A.J. Madison, 1869)Google Scholar, 198.
85. Act of Oct. 17, 1730, reprinted in The Colonial Laws of New York 2 (Albany: James B. Lyon, 1894), 655–56
86. Act of December 20, 1866, no. 219, 1866 Ga. Laws 154. Statewide laws may not have been motivated by labor control. In antebellum Alabama, hunting, gambling, and racing were not permitted on Sunday. Ala. Code § 3303 (1852). In North Carolina, a Republican-dominated legislature banned Sunday hunting. Act of January 27, 1869, ch. 18, 1868–69 N.C. Public Laws 59.
87. Act of February 29, 1876, ch. 9, § 4, 1876 Ga. Laws 20, 21.
88. Flynn, White Land, Black Labor, 180.
89. Ibid., 128.
90. Kantor, Politics and Property Rights, 123–24.
91. Act of February 21, 1873, no. 217, 1873 Ga. Laws 235 (closed season for deer, quail, and wild turkey in Chatham and Bryan counties).
92. Act of March 2, 1875, no. 298, 1875 Ga. Laws 296 (banning seine, gill, and drag nets in parts of Chatham County).
93. Act of March 2, 1875, no. 125, 1875 Ga. Laws 113.
94. King, Edward, The Southern States of North America (London: Blackie & Son, 1875)Google Scholar, 434. The Revised Code compiled during Congressional Reconstruction only proscribed hunting without landowner permission more than 7 miles from one's home, if the hunter intended to sell the hide or venison. S.C. Rev. Stat. ch. 77, §§ 14, 15 (1873). This restriction was originally adopted in 1769. Ibid. (see marginalia).
95. Hahn, “Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging,” 48.
96. Act of March 1, 1878, no. 373, 1877–78 S.C. Acts 392. The percentage of the population in each county that was black in 1880 was: Clarendon 62, Darlington 63, Georgetown 82, Horry 32, Marion 53, and Williamsburg 68. Later that year, the statute was amended to add Chesterfield (42% black) and Marlboro (61% black) counties. Act of December 23, 1878, no. 602, 1878 S.C. Acts 724.
97. Act of December 22, 1883, no. 265, 1883 S.C. Acts 408.
98. Those who could not pay the fines in cash worked on chain gangs. Giltner, Hunting and Fishing, 138–139.
99. Act of February 27, 1877, ch. 3044, no. 68, 1877 Fla. Laws 103. The law did not take effect until published by the county commissioners.
100. “Louisiana Game Interests,” Forest and Stream 27 (1886): 146.Google Scholar
101. Giltner, Hunting and Fishing, 166.
102. For example, Ruffin allowed “any decent white man” to hunt on his land, but no blacks. Ruffin, Frank G., “The Proposed Law for Taxing Dogs,” Southern Planter and Farmer 8 (1874): 245.Google Scholar
103. “Report of the Committee of Agriculture and Manufactures on the Petitions for a Change of the General Law of Enclosures,” The Farmers’ Register 2 (1835): 712.Google Scholar
104. “Kuklux with a New Purpose,” New York Times, March 26, 1882, 3; “Against a Stock Law,” New York Times, August 6, 1883, 1; and “Opposition to a Stock Law,” New York Times, June 5, 1884, 2.
105. “Reaping the Whirlwind,” Huntsville (Al.) Gazette, April 8, 1882, 2.
106. Shaw v. Woffard, 82 Miss. 143, 34 So. 329 (1903).
107. Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Walker, 87 Ga. 204, 13 S.E. 511 (1891).
108. King, “Closing of the Southern Range”; Hahn, Roots of Southern Populism; and Kantor, Politics and Property.
109. Act of January 19, 1858, ch. 428, 1857–58 Va. Acts 263.
110. E.S. Hammond, Wm. Pinkney Starke, and Thos. W. Whattey, Committee of the Beech Island Farmers’ Club, “Fencing Stock vs. Fencing Crops,” Rural Carolinian 2 (1871): 516.
111. “Fencing Stock In or Out,” Letter from D. Lee, Anderson (S.C.) Intelligencer, November 11, 1869, 1.
112. “‘No Fence’ Summed Up,” Dublin (Ga.) Post, November 2, 1881, 2 (Sparta [Ga.] Ishmaelite by line).
113. “Fences: The Heaviest Burden on the Planter,” New Orleans Daily Picayune, June 9, 1874, 1.
114. Letter from Sam Weller, Oglethorpe County, Ga., Southern Farm and Home 3 (1871): 52–53.
115. “Repeal of the Stock Law,” Letter from A Citizen, Lafayette (La.) Advertiser, October 26, 1895, 5.
116. “A Dog and Fence Law Wanted,” Crawford (Ga.) Oglethorpe Echo, June 2, 1876, 1.
117. “The Fence Question,” Macon (Ga.) Weekly Telegraph, November 28, 1871, 4.
118. “The Georgia Press,” Macon (Ga.) Weekly Telegraph, July 15, 1873, 4 (reporting the previous day's news from the Monroe [Ga.] Advertiser),
119. Bill Arp, “No Fence, No Whisky, Wisdom of Wire,” Opelousas (La.) Courier, July 14, 1883: 2.
120. Act of December 20, 1866, no. 4810, 1866 S.C. Acts 414 (closing the range on Edisto, James, John's, and Wadmalaw islands). These islands lay along the coast south of Charleston.
121. Act of June 7, 1877, no. 240, 1877 S.C. Acts 251 (excluding Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton, Georgetown, Horry, and Williamsburg counties). The following year four more counties were excluded. Act of December 23, 1878, no. 629, 1878 S.C. Acts 746 (excluding Aiken, Darlington, Marion, and Spartanburg counties).
122. Act of December 14, 1878, no. 552, 1878 S.C. Acts 689 (closing Abbeville, Newberry, Laurens, and Union counties). In 1880, blacks comprised 68%, 69%, 60%, and 56% of those counties, respectively.
123. Act of December 20, 1881, no. 472, 1881–82 S.C. Acts 591. Three counties were excluded. Ibid., § 1. Democratic support was uniform, so Holt used the roll call vote as a conservative baseline in his study of South Carolina politics. Holt, Thomas, Black over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977)Google Scholar, 190.
124. “Another Exodus,” New York Times, January 5, 1882, 4; and “Flight from South Carolina,” New York Times, January 11, 1882, 1.
125. Providing their own stock, implements, and fertilizer, tenants in Edgefield, SC paid a 450 lb bale for 6–10 acres. “Exodus of 1882,” New Orleans Daily Picayune, January 10, 1882, 2.
126. Act of December 3, 1866, no. 54, 1866–67 Ala. Laws 46 (closing the range in part of Dallas County except between December 25 and February 15). In 1870, Dallas County was 79% black.
127. Act of January 31, 1867, ch. 189, 1867 Miss. Laws 259 (closing the range in Warren County). In 1870, 70% of Warren County residents were black.
128. Act of November 29, 1865, ch. 117, 1865 Miss. Laws 289 (Regular session) (allowing the Board of Police to close the range in any township in Hinds County after application by a majority of the legal voters). Hinds was 67% black in 1870.
129. Act of January 31, 1867, ch. 189, 1867 Miss. Laws 259 (closing the range); and Act of January 22, 1877, ch. 169, 1877 Miss. Laws 203 (board of supervisors required to open or close the range upon petition by majority of landowners). In 1870, 70% of Warren County residents were black.
130. Act of February 20, 1866, no. 220, 1865–66 Ala. Laws 334. In 1870, Dallas and Greene counties were 79% black, Marengo county was 77% black, and Perry county was 71% black.
131. Ibid., § 4.
132. Act of January 2, 1872, no. 279, § 4, 1871 Ala. Laws 335, 337 (allowing all male resident landowners to vote).
133. King, “Closing of the Southern Range,” 58.
134. Act of October 26, 1866, ch. 119, 1866 Miss. Laws 163 (creating Wahalak Agricultural District in Kemper County). In 1870, Kemper was 56% black.
135. “Gurleys Notes and Comments,” Huntsville (Al.) Gazette, March 7, 1885, 3.
136. “The Fence Laws,” Atlanta Constitution, August 31, 1870, 1 (upcountry opposition); and “House of Representatives,” Atlanta Constitution, September 8, 1870, 1 (opposition from Representative Turner, identified as “colored”).
137. Act of August 26, 1872, no. 30, § 7, 1872 Ga. Laws 34, 36, codified at Ga. Code §§ 1449–55 (1873).
138. Thomas P. Janes, the Georgia commissioner of agriculture, described the 1872 law as “unjust” because voting was open to the landless, who had “no interest” under the “present system of labor.” Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture of the State of Georgia (Atlanta: J.H. Estill, 1875)Google Scholar, 66.
139. In 1881, five counties closed the range, joined by seven in the following year. Kantor, Politics and Property, 93.
140. Act of September 29, 1881, no. 401, 1880–81 Ga. Laws 79.
141. Flynn, White Land, Black Labor, 136.
142. Ibid.
143. Ibid.
144. Ibid., 180.
145. Kantor, Politics and Property, 71.
146. Act of December 15, 1875, no. 99, 1875 Ark. Acts 185.
147. Because Lee County was created after 1870, these figures are from 1880.
148. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 373.
149. Act of March 9, 1871, no. 110, 1870–71 Ala. Laws 93 (repealing Act of December 3, 1866, no. 54, 1866–67 Ala. Laws 46); and Act of March 6, 1871, no. 114, 1870–71 Ala. Laws 97 (repealing Act of Febuary 10, 1866, no. 298, 1866–67 Ala. Laws 475). Dallas County was 79% black, whereas Limestone county was 49% black.
150. Act of February 18, 1871, no. 112, 1870–71 Ala. Laws 94 (reopening part of Greene County); and Act of April 8, 1873, no. 236, 1872–73 Ala. Laws 248 (reopening part of Lowndes County). Both counties were four-fifths black in 1870.
151. Act of March 28, 1873, no. 257, 1872–73 Ala. Laws 267.
152. Act of March 25, 1872, ch. 44, 1872 Miss. Laws 207 (reopening part of Warren County); and Act of March 28, 1872, ch. 47, 1872 Miss. Laws 210 (reopening DeSoto and Holmes counties).
153. Act of April 9, 1873, ch. 46, 1873 Miss. Laws 200 (reopening Madison County); and Act of April 9, 1873, ch. 47, 1873 Miss. Laws 200 (reopening Lowndes County).
154. Act of February 12, 1875, ch. 79, 1875 Miss. Laws 111.
155. Hahn, “Hunting, Fishing, Foraging,” 48.
156. Letter from Ex. Confed., Sumter County, Al., Southern Cultivator 28 (1871): 203.
157. Act of January 27, 1871, ch. 1846, no. 15, 1871 Fla. Laws 35.
158. Act of May 31, 1889, ch. 3945, no. 99, 1889 Fla. Laws 177 (closing the range in part of Leon County); and Act of June 2, 1897, ch. 4603, no. 89, 1897 Fla. Laws 150 (closing the range in part of Dade County). Leon County held the state capital and largest city; therefore, urbanization can explain it.
159. Act of March 3, 1873, ch. 193, 1872–73 N.C. Public Laws 314 (allowing voters in five counties to close the range). Those five counties had almost one third more black residents than the remaining 85 counties.
160. Act of March 7, 1879, ch. 135, 1879 N.C. Public Laws 252 (allowing voters in twenty counties to close the range). Those twenty counties were slightly whiter than those not authorized to close the range, and than the state as a whole.
161. Act of May 14, 1895, ch. 182, 1895 Tenn. Public Acts 380.
162. The four counties closed had a mean black population of 40%, compared with 16% for the 92 counties in which the range was left open.
163. Act of March 17, 1899, ch. 23, 1899 Tenn. Public Acts 33. In counties with 59,000 residents the range remained closed, which applied to four counties by 1900.
164. Act of April 6, 1899, ch. 149, 1899 Tenn. Public Acts 276 (closing the range in Fayette County); Act of April 21, 1899, ch. 362, 1899 Tenn. Public Acts 849 (closing the range in Tipton County); and Act of April 17, 1899, ch. 423, 1899 Tenn. Public Acts 986 (closing the range in Lauderdale County). More than half of the residents of these counties were black.
165. Act of May 16, 1873, ch. 16, 1873 Tex. Gen. Laws 76.
166. The nineteenth century census did not separately enumerate persons of Mexican ancestry; therefore, that comparison cannot be made.
167. Act of August 15, 1876, ch. 98, 1876 Tex. Gen. Laws 150.
168. Act of May 20, 1899, ch. 128, 1899 Tex. Gen. Laws 220.
169. Act of Jan. 26, 1866, ch. 94, 1865–66 Va. Acts 203. Accomack County was excepted. Ibid., § 5.
170. Amelia County Court Order Book CCOB 45, reel 191 (February 28, 1866), 557; and Nottoway CCOB 1, reel 20 (April 6, 1866), 45. In 1870, Amelia and Nottoway counties were 69% and 76% black, respectively. In contrast, the median Virginia county was only 45% black.
171. Greensville CCOB 13, reel 17 (February 3, 1868), 35. In 1870, Greensville was 66% black.
172. Letter from Sam Weller, Oglethorpe County, Ga., Southern Farm and Home 3 (1871): 53.
173. Act of March 25, 1813, § 5, 1812 La. Acts 154, 158 (2d session). A statutory revision during Reconstruction maintained the local option. La. Rev. Stat. § 2743 (1870).
174. “Stock Raising and Planting Interests,” Richland (La.) Beacon, January 31, 1880, 3.
175. Ouachita (La.) Telegraph, April 20, 1889, 4; and “Lawful Fence,” Homer (La.) Guardian, April 12, 1889, 2 (noting that the 1853 fence law remained in force).
176. As before, the workers were provided a garden plot. Foner, Reconstruction, 399, 402.
177. Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives II, Part 5 (Washington: Federal Writers’ Project, Works Progress Administration, 1941)Google Scholar, 105.
