A look back at rural life
By Dr. Bill Stewart
When Alabama’s newly-elected legislators go into session next year, the bills they consider will be applicable to what has become a mostly urbanized state.
For almost 60 years the decennial censuses have shown that most of the state’s residents live in urban rather than rural areas. This was not the case in the last quarter of the 19th century when the following bills were introduced for legislative consideration:
To prevent the taking, or using temporarily, of any animal, commodity, or thing, without the consent, or assent, of the owner or person having the control thereof.
In recent years, immigration (especially immigration contrary to federal law) has been one of the most contentious issues in national politics. While practically all Alabama legislators have been against illegal immigration, many have not been very sympathetic with legal immigration either. This was not the case in post-Civil War Alabama. With the prospect of newly-freed African-Americans not only leaving the plantations on which they formerly worked as slaves but leaving the state entirely, legislation was introduced to boost the number of immigrants in Alabama. One motive was to prevent the decrease of the state’s representation in Congress.
To induce and encourage immigration to the State of Alabama.
When Republicans were in control of the Alabama Legislature, much as they are now, they strongly resisted white efforts to regulate the lives of blacks almost to the extent of placing them in slavery once again. To prevent this, Republican legislators introduced bills:
For the protection of agricultural laborers in this State;
After Reconstruction and the renewal of Democratic legislative dominance, plantation owners, especially but not exclusively in the Black Belt, tried to discourage African-Americans from leaving Alabama, which they now had every right to do, by placing a tax on northern recruiters who came South to encourage former slaves to head north for jobs which supposedly paid better than those on cotton plantations. Here is an example of a bill introduced to discourage northern agents from attempting to lure African-Americans to head north:
To require a person who employs or in any way engages laborers in the counties of Dallas, Perry, Butler, Autauga, Wilcox, Washington, Barbour, Marengo, Pike, Montgomery, Covington, Monroe, Lowndes, Greene, Macon, Talladega , Shelby, Bibb, Bullock, Lee and Tuscaloosa, for the purpose of removing said laborers from the State, to pay a license tax.
Other rural-based bills were not as controversial as those seeking to bind African-Americans to the plantations on which they had formerly worked as slave labor. They might have been divisive locally but not nationally. Here are a few examples:
- To abolish fencing in certain portions of Montgomery County;
- To declare Pea River, from the northeast boundary of Coffee County to its confluence at
Geneva, and Coosa River in Cherokee County, a lawful fence;
- To authorize the construction of booms on the Conecuh River, in the State of Alabama,
for the safekeeping of saw-logs, timber, lumber, etc.;
- To prevent the hunting of certain animals upon the lands of others, in Bullock, Hale and
Dallas counties (note “Posted: No Hunting” signs);
- For the preservation of game animals and birds in the counties of Mobile, Monroe, Marengo, Baldwin, Dallas, Lowndes, Hale, Montgomery, Clarke, Greene, Wilcox, Pike, Talladega, Pickens, Bibb, Autauga, Chilton and Clay;
- For the protection of game in Lawrence County;
- To prevent stock from running at large in that portion of Dallas County embraced
between Sandy Chillatchie and Bogue Chitto creek, and between the Upper Linden and
the Old Wire Road;
- To authorize David P. Hughes of DeKalb County to erect a dam across Bug Will’s Creek in
said county.
