Black-Gibbs-Mitchell-Giles Ancestors of Yazoo County: A Revised Compilation of Local Family Histories

By Xlibris US

This book is about local history of families in an approximately 300-square-mile region of Yazoo County in central Mississippi from 1865 to 1965. It sketches the lives of these African Americans in a violent environment. It transcribes the 1865-66 plantation census of the county. It identifies relatives who fought in the Civil War, and points out the betrayal of Southern United States Colored Troops by Reconstruction presidents. It discusses survival skills, and compares life spans of two generations. Addressing unpleasantness it fills gaps left by oral family history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493177431

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Sammie Giles, Jr. 551883

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 05/22/2014

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Contents

List Of Photographs

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: General Background Information

Chapter 3: Exit Plan Of The War

Chapter 4: Black-Barnes-Gibbs Ancestors

Gibbs And Johnsons

Greens And Pages

Blacks

Smithsons And Leonards

Grandparents

Parents

Chapter 5: The Mitchell-Giles Ancestors

Gileses

Thomases

Mitchells And Moores

Singletons

Grandparents

Parents

Chapter 6: The Black-Gibbs-Mitchell-Giles

Concluding With The Principals

Wrap-Up Statement

Appendix A: 1865–1866 Plantation Census Of Yazoo County

Plantation Census, 1865–1866, Yazoo County, Ms (Transcription)

Summary Of The Plantation Tables

Organization And Format Of Registration Book And Plantation Tables

Analysis Of Enumeration Results

Appendix B: Mississippi Department Of Transportation General Highway Map Of Yazoo County, Mississippi

Notes

Bibliography

This book is dedicated with many thanks to Mattie Martin Giles, to the late Viola Gibbs Nickerson and Elnora Mitchell Giles, and to Will Ella Gibbs Giles and Sallie Giles Lewis.

List of Photographs

2-1 An isolated home in Kemper County, Mississippi, in 2005

3-1 A store-home combination in Macon County, Alabama, in 2005

4-1 Joseph Gibbs

4-2 Joe Gibbs (left) and his half brother, Willie Gibbs (right)

4-3 Maggie Black-Gibbs

4-4 Some Black-Gibbs family members

5-1 Robert Mitchell

5-2 London Giles

5-3 Giles and Ford families ca. 1932

5-4 John Giles and Elnora Mitchell-Giles in 1974

6-1 Sammie Son Giles, 1987

6-2 Will Ella Gibbs-Giles ca. 1998 58

6-3 Charles, Sammie, Diane, Herbert, Larry, and Robert in 2004

6-4 Laura Donald and Viola Nickerson in 2004

A-1 An old abandoned home in Lee County, Alabama, in 2005

Preface

As a child, I was intrigued by the genealogies of the Holy Bible. They were too obtuse and not often sensible to me, and were almost always side stepped in Sunday-school classes. In high school I tried to construct a few pedigree charts of biblical characters but had to simply give up from frustration. Later, I had a girlfriend whom I learned was a relative. One of her great-grandmothers, Mariah Harris Strong, had let her know about our cousin status. During my years studying physics at Tougaloo College I decided to inquire about this special relationship through one of my grandaunts, Annie Gibbs Forman, who confirmed the truth of the thing and went on to tell me how she and Mariah were related. Taking notes of all the strange names of distant relatives, most of whom lived during slavery, I produced a pedigree diagram, a first sketch of my family tree. I filed the diagram with some of my books and papers for safekeeping in Yazoo City while I went to study engineering at Brown University. After finishing and returning home, some of my books and papers of nonscientific nature had been discarded to conserve space at my mother’s house. My little family-tree branch was one of the items lost. My old flame and I had parted company, but I remained intrigued by the tree itself, and promised myself to one day reconstruct this special branch.

Over twelve years passed before I did anything about it, and many of my oldest relatives passed away. Realizing firsthand the loss of valuable information they carried with them, I began questioning every older-generation living relative about my ancestors. Though I never was able to reconstruct that first branch, I learned a lot more with each interview about my family and local history of Yazoo County. Along the way, I picked up both Civil War history and reenactment. Genealogy became a hobby.

What follows is a confabulation reflecting my views and beliefs held since 1968. I cannot hold back on one point any longer. My family history evolved in a hostile environment, but rarely did my ancestors speak about the most violent perpetrators. Slave conditions were long lasting. White planters were still whipping African American residents on plantations in the 1940s. In the 1950s many homes of Black farmers had no running water, no telephone, no radio, no television, and no gas line. In the 1940s and 50s, Blacks were still lynched for failing to move over on the sidewalk, paying too much attention to a White female, not saying yes, sir or no, sir, etc. I mention some of these assaults and provide names of assailants in a few cases. My ancestors remained terrified of White folk well over a hundred years after the American Civil War. In fact, the majority in Mississippi has politically tyrannized the minority population for well over 130 years, even though there were fewer lynchings and other such overt acts after the 1950s. It is easier to understand what my family went through when one appreciates the social and political climate during the times. So I briefly touch some of these unpleasant matters while primarily providing biographical materials on key ancestors.

This book is a product of all of those personal interviews with added material from historical archives, public records, and Internet sources that I discovered over a thirty-year period. Family documents are valuable to me, and the results of my efforts may prove interesting to younger relatives. It is my hope that one of them will follow suit and fill in some of the blanks left by others and me.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank also the National Archives and Records Administration, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Tuskegee University Library System, the Yazoo County Chancery Court clerks, the Yazoo County Circuit Court clerks, the B. S. Ricks Memorial Library, the many clerks at various Family Centers of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints, the Generations Network (Ancestry.com), the copyediting staff of Xlibris, and all of my family members who helped with this work over the years.

Holland, OH

January 2014

Chapter 1

Introduction

Every Hour in the Day ¹

One cold morning I lay dis body down;

I will pick up my cross an’ follow my Lord all roun’ my Fader’s throne.

Every hour in de day cry holy, cry holy, my Lord!

Every hour in de day cry holy, oh show me de crime I’ve done.

What wrongs did the Africans commit to deserve the punishment they received? Better still, what civilized authority gave Europeans the right to inflict such harm? Obviously, some Europeans violated the human rights of Africans for centuries. No victim of a crime against humanity has been the perpetrator. The basis of these European actions cannot be found in moral or legal codes, and thus, their actions in this regard are indicative of the great blemish on their character. Most reasonable people would agree that both Africans and Europeans must truly confront unpleasant mistakes of their past, especially slavery, in order to move forward in meaningful ways. One cannot dwell only on beatified facets of the old Southern aristocracy in the United States of America particularly without losing touch with the reality of a shared history of international injustice and poverty. Justice awaits each party and demands corrections.

There are many volumes on the honor, dignity, and strengths of the ruling class of the South during and following the American Civil War—an actively romantic and impressionist period in Europe. There are volumes about the accomplishments of Europeans in various arts and sciences and about the military exploits of American commanders and soldiers. For example, two literary works describing the times in America are the epic writings of Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind) and of, the lesser known but more modern practical textbook, John Bettersworth (Mississippi: A History) which have intrinsic value as works in both fiction and history.²,³ Unfortunately, Africans are presented in negative stereotypical roles in these and other works. Likewise, there are volumes on the positive and proud qualities of both classes, but still fewer on the negative aspects of both. The following discussion, however, focuses on positive aspects of a particular set of underclass Southerners not addressed in any classical work: two branches of an African-American family typical of those found in most counties of Mississippi. We honor, by extending a few kind words to the servants and laborers, unsung heroes and heroines, particularly those field hands who resided in Yazoo County, Mississippi, during the post-antebellum period. In dealing with some of the negative aspects of the ruling class, we remember another beautiful nature of Southerners: Most Southerners are lovely, noble Christian citizens. However, some of the noble ones—and make no mistake about it—are really bad. It is this latter group that is at the heart of the race problem in America.

The earthly South was built on firearms-supported violent interactions of two peoples: European masters and African slaves. American slavery during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries provided the foundation for all future relationships between these two principal races in this country. Though the South participated in the melting pot, the principal groups were—and still are—Whites and Blacks. White-on-Black, Black-on-White, White-on-White, or Black-on-Black violence was always present or was looming in subterranean levels outside the official and formal intercourses of government, economics, arts, and religion.⁴ Though slavery ended in December 1865 in the United States, its effects have continued well into the twenty-first century. Local justice has been easily obtainable, except in cases where the perpetrators were acting for White interests. After the Civil War, Black men legally obtained guns, and started killing each other with abandonment and no self-governing tribunals for redress, a devaluation of human life that has persisted for over a century. However, by far, the defining and controlling interaction has been White-on-Black violence driven by agriculture-based economic forces suppressing for centuries political and social achievements of (Sub-Saharan, West-Coast) African descendants.⁵,⁶,⁷ However, just as there have been White oppressors there have also been White supporters. From abolitionists to the army of John Brown to the Southern Poverty Law Center and to the Anti-Racist Action, there have been non-Black citizens willing to stand against unjust White-on-Black violence. The following genealogical study tracks two families living through this violence starting at or near the Civil War and ending shortly after World War II from about 1865 to the early 1960s. Violence is not what the ancestors chose to pass on.

Indeed, there were some clear days following the days of dark clouds. These were the times when most African Americans lived on farms, when manual labor was equivalent to responsible adult living. For nearly one hundred years we managed, owning little or no real estate, to obtain the necessities of life while making profits for landowners. We raised a super vast majority of our foods; drew water from wells, cisterns, and streams; and used dish pans and made our own soap. We grew and ate field peas, corn, tomatoes, turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens, okra, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, butter beans, peanuts, and watermelons. We enjoyed sorghum molasses, rice, grits, pork, beef, and