572 



MISSISSIPPI. 



MISSOURI. 



complete system of levees, constructed within 

 the last three years. The land is the best in 

 the State for cotton, raising from three fourths 

 to a bale an acre, and cotton is almost exclu- 

 sively cultivated. In consequence of the dan- 

 ger from overflow, the delta is still thinly popu- 

 lated, less so than other portions of the State, 

 the average amount of land in cultivation be- 

 ing only twelve acres per square mile, although 

 all of it is tillable and fertile. 



The negro question threatens to play as im- 

 portant a part in this section of tiie State as in 

 the coast counties of South Carolina, for the 

 delta is becoming blacker and blacker. In the 

 decade between 1870 and 1880 the negro popu- 

 lation of this region increased 115 per cent., 

 while the whites made very little advance. 

 This was when the levees were down. Now 

 that they are up, and the colored exodus has 

 set in that direction, this race increase must 

 be even more rapid. The delta or swamp has 

 always been a negro district. In some coun- 

 ties Issaquena, for instance the population 

 is ten negroes to one white, and in certain dis- 

 tricts the disproportion is even twice as great. 

 There are to-day 235,000 negroes in the Yazoo 

 delta or swamp, to perhaps 80,000 or, at most, 

 35,000 whites nearly eight to one and the 

 disproportion is .growing yearly, monthly, 

 daily greater. On the other side of the Missis- 

 sippi, in the Tensas district of Louisiana, the 

 population stands ten negroes to one white, 

 and in the Arkansas district adjacent four ne- 

 groes to one white. Here, in the very heart of 

 the lower Mississippi country, is an immense 

 fertile region, as large almost as Indiana, which 

 is rapidly becoming Africanized and being 

 given over wholly to the negro. Whatever 

 movement of the negro population there is in 

 the South to-day tends in that direction. And 

 this movement is only begun, for the colored 

 people are just learning how to emigrate suc- 

 cessfully. Around Greenville, Miss., as a cen- 

 ter, are collected nearly half a million negroes, 

 to 60,000 or 70,000 whites. 



"The exodus," says a correspondent, "has 

 undoubtedly improved the condition of the ne- 

 groes in the upland country. The planters are 

 anxious to keep them at home, and are conse- 

 quently giving them better terms. Some of 

 the shrewd negroes in Monroe, an upland 

 county, thought the present a very favorable 

 time to put in their demands. A colored con- 

 vention was held, at which resolutions were 

 adopted declaring it to be the sense of the 

 meeting that the rent of the lands should be 

 paid in the crops raised thereon, thus dividing 

 the risk of the rise and fall in products between 

 the landlord and tenant ; that the leases should 

 be for long terms, and that the tenants should 

 keep up the ditches, fences, and improvements, 

 and that the cotton-seed and other fertilizers 

 produced by the tenants should be placed on 

 the land. A committee of colored men was 

 appointed to consult with the land-owners to 

 see if these terms could not be carried out. 



The demands for longer leases, or a division of 

 the crop raised, for the use of cotton-seed for 

 fertilizing the land instead of its sale to pay the 

 rent, are just and proper, and, as the land- 

 owners just now are anxious to keep their ne- 

 gro tenants at home and prevent their emi- 

 gration, there is every likelihood of their being 

 agreed to. 



" As far as the hill country of Mississippi is 

 concerned, the present emigration movement 

 of negroes promises to make it more a grain, 

 fruit, and dairy than a cotton country, and to 

 improve the condition of the negroes remain- 

 ing behind, by decreasing the quantity of float- 

 ing labor that has kept wages low." 



This movement was, doubtless, hastened by 

 the failure of the cotton-crop in the hills this 

 year, but it has its root in dissatisfaction on 

 the part of the colored people with their con- 

 dition. Although the chief emigration occurred 

 during the last two months of the year, the 

 movement is not new, but has been going on 

 for more than a year. There has always been 

 a tendency on the part of the negroes to drift 

 to the Swamp, where cotton is more prolific 

 and more generally cultivated, and where the 

 climate and society are more pleasant to them. 

 The rebuilding, two years ago, of the levees 

 along the Yazoo front suddenly gave a vigor- 

 ous impetus to this negro migration. Hun- 

 dreds of thousands of acres of land which had 

 been abandoned on account of the danger from 

 overflow, were redeemed by these levees, old 

 deserted plantations were reopened, and new 

 ones laid out. Moreover, many Western capi- 

 talists, invading the Yazoo bottom, found it 

 filled with the largest and finest timber in the 

 South, and purchased extensively, near a mill- 

 ion acres of woodland having been taken up 

 by them within the past three years. All 

 this, the increased acreage under cultivation, 

 the mills erected to saw this timber, naturally 

 caused a demand for labor, and that labor is 

 being supplied by the negroes of the adjoining 

 hill country. 



MISSOURI. State Government. The following 

 were the State officers during the year : Gov- 

 ernor, John S. Marmaduke, Democrat; Lieu- 

 tenant-Governor, A. P. Morehouse ; Secretary 

 of State, Michael K. McGrath ; Treasurer, 

 James M. Siebert; Auditor, John Walker; 

 Attorney-General, D. G. Boone ; Land Regis- 

 ter, Robert McCulloch ; Superintendent of Pub- 

 lic Schools, William E. Coleman ; Railroad 

 Commissioners, George C. Pratt, James Hard- 

 ing, and William G. Downing; Superintend- 

 ent of Insurance Department, Alfred Carr. 

 Supreme Court: Chief- Justice, John W. Henry; 

 Associate Justices, Thomas A. Sherwood, Eli- 

 jah H. Norton, Robert D. Ray, and Francis M. 

 Black. 



Finances. The following are the estimates for 

 the years 1887-'88: Interest on debt, $1,485,- 

 920; sinking-fund, $500,000; civil list, $641,- 

 550 ; eleemosynary and educational institutions, 

 $530,200 ; assessing and collecting the revenue, 



