Henry W. Warren
Henry Warren was born in Massachusetts in 1838, being schooled there until he left for college at Yale. Upon graduation, he was suggested for and granted a post as a teacher at a public school in Nashville, which he accepted. After a short tenure as a teacher, his brother-in-law came to visit and explained he had met a plantation owner in Mississippi who wanted to sell the entirety of his enterprise. Warren agreed to partake in the transaction and the operation of the plantation. The principal of his school made it a condition of his resignation that he appoint a replacement, and Warren took care to mention that the man he chose as his replacement went on to be the Dean of Howard University in Washington, D.C. A great portion of Warren’s memoir simply details the day to day of Southern life, or at least plantation life; the tools, techniques, and mishaps that occurred during the process of farming cotton and herds of animals.
Warren inherited the sharecropping contracts of his predecessor which had been agreed to by nearly all his former slaves. Warren described these workers as ‘industrious and efficient’, ‘making the whole plantation ring’ with their rich culture of work songs, and possessing an indomitable happiness (Warren, 18-20). When the Black population of his county organized in an endeavor to establish a church, Warren donated land for that purpose (Warren, 30). Over the course of Warren running the plantation, most of the sharecroppers were able to save up enough to buy their own mule, tools, and a 40 or 80 acre plot of land for themselves, where they could build a home and farm the land. Despite the well-known shortcomings of the “40 acres and a mule” promises made to Black Americans of this period, Warren emphasizes that the vast majority of white men in his county and in the South beyond lived in such conditions. He tells many stories of receiving generous hospitality from these people, whom he dubs ‘poor whites’. He tells of their small log cabin without windows save cracks in the roof and walls, and reminisces fondly about many a ‘bountiful breakfast’ of cornbread and bacon.
He was often shocked by the standards of technology and education in his new home, such as the outdated kitchen technology of the plantation house, which was otherwise furnished with luxuries, and the practice of ‘making a mark’ being sufficient for formal documents as opposed to a written signature, the standard in the North, where literacy was much higher. Most of the people he met were welcoming, but he had several run-ins with people who wanted him gone. He had all 10 of his colt horses stolen over his first year in Mississippi, despite extra precautions taken to prevent this as theft of carpet-baggers’ horses was then endemic to the state, and had his gin house burnt down with all his cotton seed inside (Warren, 26-27). There were a few incidents where he experienced hostility sufficient to make him fear for his life, and he carried a pistol with him nearly everywhere, even sleeping with it under his pillow (Warren, 28). However, he felt that generally there were significantly more rumors of violence against him and other carpet-baggers than legitimate hostility. He also readily admits to the amount of support he had to receive in learning the farming trade, for which he credits to a small degree the former slaveholders, moreso to the ‘poor whites’, but mostly to the ex-slaves working his land: “a Yale graduate at the feet of ex-slaves” (Warren, 33).
Warren had purely economic motives in coming to Mississippi, being fairly unconcerned with Reconstruction until he was nominated to the board of registration ahead of the Constitutional Convention of that State. He went on to receive a nomination and be elected to the Constitutional Convention, as for the first set of Representatives sent by Mississippi to Congress, during which time he became the Speaker for the House of Mississippi. Although he claims to have never made any personal efforts to gain these roles, going as far as to say he never solicited a single vote, he took great pride in the work. There was considerable damage to government facilities that had to be repaired in the aftermath of the war, sweeping codes had to be drafted regarding nearly every facet of government, and most importantly to Warren, a public schooling system, which had never been seen by the State of Mississippi, was established.
Warren lived in Mississippi for some 20 years before he moved back up North. He speaks fondly of his time there and the people he met, with a few exceptions. He described the business of running the plantation as far from lucrative, which he suspected to generally be the rule for Northerners in his position; that they had come with hundreds of thousands of dollars, and “planted their money” (Warren, 22). He came away from the experience feeling he had accomplished a great deal, especially in the establishment of a church and new public schools across the State. In most regards, he tried successfully to assimilate into the region’s ways and culture. The essence of the complaints against him was that his lack of unequivocal acceptance of white supremacy was tantamount to a rejection of and therefore threat to Southern culture. He was by no means a perfect man. One story he relates tells of being harassed by a neighbor's dog, firing a warning shot, then shooting the dog in the mouth when it nips at his mule again. In the following days, he sat at the neighbor’s table and listened to him deride the unknown murderer of the dog, and Warren tells the reader that the neighbor was never the wiser as to who had pulled the trigger. In any case, on the whole, it is clear that Warren took a legitimate interest in the enrichment of his community and State more broadly, with tangible results. He remained in the South for a long time, staying far beyond many of his contemporaries, only convinced to leave when militant groups such as the KKK had escalated their violence to untenable heights and indoctrinated the majority of the ‘poor whites’ onto their side and against him.