| "Meadow Woods" Plantation is located in northeastern Mississippi's black prairie region. Built in 1839, the house and surrounding 1,440 acres belonged to two families before John Saunders Rice purchased them in 1848. The Rice family extended the property to include three working plantation, over 7,000 acres, and a labor force of 217 slaves working cotton. In 1989 the Rice family still retains ownership, though dairying has replaced cotton, the acreage has shrunk to about 1,000 acres, and slavery is long dead.;It is the purpose of the dissertation to examine the social and economic history of the Rice holdings, particularly the Home Place at "Meadow Woods," over the 150 years of its existence. The dissertation considers such topics as slave society; the plantation and family during the Civil War, Reconstruction and the development of sharecropping; agricultural changes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; diversification; tenant life; the New Deal era; and post-World War II mechanization.;The theses of Thomas Govan, Alfred Conrad, John Meyer, Roger Ransom, and Richard Sutch concerning the profitability of slavery are supported by the financial records of the Rice plantations. Postwar sharecropping on the place confirms arguments by Gavin Wright and David Conrad that the South's low-wage economy depended on the poverty of its laborers, though not due to conspiracy. The tenant migration from the plantation after World War II resulted mainly from diversification and transition in farm operation not mechanization, thus supporting the theses of Warren Whatley and Gavin Wright.;The 150 year period (1839-1989) under study here provides opportunity for an extended survey of the plantation and the changes it experienced. Most such plantation studies are limited to either antebellum, postbellum, or twentieth century periods. Determining how typical this plantation was for the 150 years of its existence provides conclusions which provide valuable information for further comparative studies in the future. |
