Telling the Mississippi Story!

Beginning Anew..... Jug & Snally in Mississippi

Family questions I've asked along the way. . . . . abt 24-30 months ago via FB

Joyce in Chicago said her brother Charles took the family photo albums to Dorothy's house when Dear (their mother) passed. I haven't seen them since. In those albums I remember definitely a picture of James "Jug" Travis. Cornelia "Snalley" Travis, maybe. Perhaps you could ask Dorothy if these items are still in her house. (I haven't been there in years).

Even I -----  miss the followup...???   Why do I so often hesitate?  Do I feel I'm imposing into somebody- else's past?   Tis for tat.... it is my Past that I seek.

Good bye and Hello 2014

Today's Revelation

God knows my DNA..... in a very comforting way.     I am to live as God has ordained....

Jug and Snally...... Were you a diabetic???

Bryd (Byron) Travis was born in Sep. 1843 in MS and died in 1926 in Holmes, MS.

Mollie Garrett was born in 1849 in MS and died in 1910 in Holmes, MS at the age of 60-61.

This couple were married in 1866 in Lexington MS

Children of Byrd and Mollie:

(1) b 1866 MS Rayford
(2) b. 1868 MS Martha
(3) b. 1869 MS Joseph
(4) b. 1873 MS George
(5) b. 1874 MS James born in Holmes, MS and died 1-7-1950 in Holmes MS @ age 75-76        Jug and Snally  -   Jim and Nealie
(6) b. 1876 MS Wiliam M.
(7) b. 1877 MS Charles F
(8) b. 1881 MS Minnie
(9) b. 1883 MS Craig
(10) b. 1887 MS Pearl
(11) b. 1891 MS Birda

Birda - Berty ~ Travis/Martin Family Tree

Huggins-Travis.... or Travis-Huggins

I took the time to read the details on the Death Certificate for my Grandfather Howard Huggins Sr.

 

Holmes County.... MS searches!

Holmes County is a county located in the Mississippi Delta region of the U.S. state of Mississippi.

As of 2010, the population was 19,198. It is named in honor of David Holmes, the first governor of Mississippi. Its county seat is Lexington.^[1] Holmes County has the lowest life expectancy of any county in the United States, either for men or women

Holmes County has the third lowest per capita income in Mississippi and the 41st lowest in the United States !!!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Statistics:   7,314 households, and 5,229 families:  County has a total area of 764.18 sq miles:  population density was 29 people per square mile (11/km²).  Racial makeup of the county was 20.47% White, 78.66% Black or African American, 0.12% Native American, 0.15% Asian, 0.07% from other races, and 0.52% from two or more races. 0.90% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

According to the census^[4] of 2000, the largest ancestry groups in Holmes County were African 78.66%, English 11.4%, and Scots-Irish 5%

Unincorporated Cummunities.... hmnnnn in MS

and of which I have become familiar on the 1880 - early 1900's census tracts.

Thornton is located on U.S. Highway 49E and is approximately 7 miles (11 km) north of Eden and approximately 10 miles (16 km) south of Tchula.

Ebenezer is located at the intersection of Mississippi Highway 17 and Mississippi Highway 433, approximately 10 miles (16 km) south of Lexington and 4 miles (6.4 km) approximately west of Goodman.


Richland is approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of Goodman and approximately 7 miles (11 km) north of Pickens

Tchula, MS to Lexington Distance

. . is also about 14 minutes (11.4 miles)

 

Tchula is a town in Holmes County, Mississippi. The population was 2,332 at the 2000 census.

Statistics:  724 households, and 524 families.   Tchula has a total area of 1.4 square miles (3.6 km²), and Population Density was 1,683.6 people per square mile.  Racial makeup of the town:   3.43% White, 95.93% Black, less than 1% Indian, Hispanic Latino or other races.

Lexington, MS Just up the Road... I'd say...

Distance between Durant, Mississippi (MS) and Lexington, Mississippi (MS) ??  13 Miles...about 19 minutes .............  just up the road!

 

Lexington is a city in Holmes County, Mississippi. The population was 2,025 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Holmes County.

 Statistics:  725 households, and 503 families; Lexington has a total area of 2.5 square miles (6.5 km²), Population Density 825.6 people per square mile. Racial makeup:  31.36% White, 67.26% African American, Less than 1% Indian, Asian, two or more, other, Hispanic or Latino. 

Durant Mississipi City Fact @ Family History

Durant is a city in Holmes County, Mississippi. It was founded in 1858 as a station on the Mississippi Central Railroad, later part of the Illinois Central. Durant was named for Louis Durant, a Choctaw chief, who had lived on a bluff just across the nearby Big Black River. The population was 2,932 at the 2000 census

Statistics:  1,075 households, and 744 families. Durant has a total area of 2.2 square miles (5.7 km^2):   Population Density: was 1,316.4 people per square mile.   Racial makeup:  28% White, 70.% Black;  less than 1% Indian, Asian, Hispanic or Latino or othr races.

FACTS:  Absolom M. West (planter, politician, Civil War general, labor organizer and Vice Presidential candidate, 1818–1894) owned a plantation near Durant prior to the American Civil War.

 

Travis Family aka Sharecroppers on the Watson Farm

Sharecropping enabled the South to maintain the economic power relations

of plantation cotton production after the legal form of slavery was abolished. Here¹s how it worked:

Debt was as central to sharecropping as cotton. Each sharecropping family rented a plot of land from the planter, or landlord, and was loaned a monthly stipend called the furnish to buy food and other necessary items (usually at the plantation commissary, or store) until the crop came in. The landlord also loaned the sharecropper seed money - often at high interest rates - for the cotton seed, tools, fuel, fertilizer and feed (banks wouldn¹t lend to sharecroppers). The cotton was picked by hand in October and November (schools would shut until after the harvest) and taken to the gin where the cotton was separated from its seed, weighed by the landlord, packed into bales, and sold.

 

Around Christmas, the sharecropper would go to the plantation office for the settle. There the manager would first deduct fees and debts - including interest on the furnish and seed money - and then pay the sharecropper his share. In Goin’ to Chicago, Dr. Martin says he and his parents worked for a whole year and cleared $300. Dr. Martin was lucky. After all the deductions taken by the landlord (often calculated fraudulently), many sharecroppers discovered at the settle that they owed the landlord money. Falling ever deeper into debt, they were compelled to pledge the next year¹s crop as payment . . . . . . . . . Thus a system of debt peonage replaced slavery, ensuring a cheap supply of labor to grow cotton and other crops while condemning African Americans to grinding poverty.

 

Some sharecroppers were white, but the great majority were black.

How to Vote back in the Travis Day !! ?? !!

THE VOICE OF THE NEGRO The Negro cannot trust the Democratic party on the vital questions of his rights. The Southern Democracy, where lies the main strength of the party, is frankly hostile to his rights and would if possible limit them still more. Thinking colored men can only view with apprehension the prospect of a cabinet dominated by the Gormans, Tillmans, Vardamans, or others of their kind. With all its shortcomings the Republican party, by virtue of its traditions, and in view of the large Northern colored vote, cannot afford to be actively unfriendly to the Negro. It might be still more indifferent and still be the lesser of two evils. But the chief reason why colored men who vote will support the Republican ticket in the coming campaign lies in the personality of the candidates. President Roosevelt and his appointees in the Federal Courts have made a strong effort to break up the new slavery ere it became firmly established, and in many other way the President has endeavored to stem the tide of prejudice, which, sweeping up from the South, has sought to overwhelm the Negro everywhere; and he has made it clear that he regards himself as the representative of the people. The influence of the executive is greater in the nation than ever before. The opponents of President Roosevelt criticise him as impulsive; his impulses are friendly towards the colored race. He is said to be impolitic in his attitude upon the question; his impolicy in that regard has been in the line of justice and generosity. We have nothing to hope for from the national Democratic party; its success in the present campaign would be a menace to our liberty.

Chesnutt, Charles W. "Peonage, or the New Slavery." Voice of the Negro, 1 (Sept. 1904): 394-97.

Were my Black Family Members subject to "Peonage"

???

Peonage and involuntary servitude became substitutes for the word slavery.

A Georgia Sharecropper’s Story of Forced Labor ca. 1900

At the turn of the century the group of black women most subject to sexual exploitation and abuse were those who lived under the system of quasi-slavery known as “peonage.”Under contract labor laws, which existed in almost every southern state, a laborer who signed a contract and then quit his or her job could be arrested. The horrors of this system of forced labor (as well as the equally horrific system of convict labor) are detailed in this stark, turn-of-the-century personal account of life under the “peonage” system in the South, published in the Independent magazine in 1904. Although this account by an African-American man did not focus especially on the sexual exploitation suffered by his wife and others, his report described how his wife was forced to become a mistress to the plantation’s owner.