"The common Rights of Mankind": Subsistence, shad, and commerce in the early republican south

Journal of American History

Volumn 83, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 13-43

  Watson, Harry L ^a  

^a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0004226926     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2945473     Document Type: Article

References (184)

1. Petition from the Orangeburg District, on the Edisto River, General Assembly Petition 1787-08-01 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia).
2. Ibid.; "The humble Petition of the Inhabitants of Orangeburgh District living above the Edisto Saw Mills," General Assembly Petition 1792-87-01, ibid. Emphasis added.
3. Porte Crayon [David Hunter Strother], "North Carolina Illustrated. I-The Fisheries," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 14 (March 1857), 438-47;
4. Edward Wood, To the President of the State Agricultural Society of North Carolina (Edcnton, 1871) (broadside. North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill).
5. On fish in the southern food supply, see Sam Bowers Hilliard, Hog Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840-1860 (Carbondale, 1972), 85-87;
6. Charles H. Stevenson, "Fisheries in the Ante-Bellum South," in The South in the Building of the Nation, vol. V: Southern Economic History, 1607-1865, ed. James C. Ballagh (Richmond, 1909), 267-71;
7. Joyce E. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730-1815 (Chapel Hill, 1993), 351-53.
8. The legislation appears in the cumulative compilations of statutes published by antebellum states and in the sections devoted to "private acts" in the collections of new statutes published by each state at the close of every legislative session. See, for example, William Waller M. Hening, comp., The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws in Virginia, from the first Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619 (13 vols., Richmond, 1820-1823);
9. William L. Saunders and Walter Clark, comps., The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina (30 vols., Raleigh, 1886-1914);
10. Thomas Cooper and David J. McCord, comps., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina (10 vols., Columbia, 1836-1841);
11. Augustin Smith Clayton, comp., A Compilation of the Laws of Georgia, Passed by the Legislature Since the Political Year 1800, to the Year 1810, Inclusive (Augusta, 1813);
12. Oliver H. Prince, comp., A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia (Milledgeville, 1822);
13. Henry Potter, J. L. Taylor, and Bartlet Yancey, comps., Laws of the State of North Carolina (2 vols., Raleigh, 1821);
14. Samuel Shepherd, comp., The Statutes at Large of Virginia from October Session 1792 to December Session 1806, Inclusive (3 vols., Richmond, 1835-1836);
15. Lucius Q. C. Lamar, comp., A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia . . . . (Augusta, 1821).
16. W. J. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York, 1941), 14-16.
17. See also Lewis Cecil Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (2 vols., Washington, 1932), I, 437-61;
18. Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton States to 1860 (New York, 1908);
19. George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York, 1951);
20. Cecil K. Brown, A State Movement in Railroad Development: The Story of North Carolina's First Effort to Establish an East and West Trunk Line Railroad (Chapel Hill, 1928).
21. Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (New York, 1983);
22. Steven Hahn, "The Yeomanry of the Nonplantarion South: Upper Piedmont Georgia, 1850-1860," in Class, Conflict, and Consensus: Antebellum Southern Community Studies, ed. Orville Vernon Burton and Robert C. McMath Jr. (Westport, 1982), 29-56;
23. Steven Hahn, "Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging: Common Rights and Class Relations in the Postbellum South," Radical History Review (no. 26, 1982), 37-64;
24. Gavin Wright, Political Economy of the Cotton South: Households, Markets, and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1978);
25. Gavin Wright and Howard Kunreuther, "Cotton, Corn, and Risk in the Nineteenth Century," Journal of Economic History, 35 (Sept. 1974), 526-51;
26. Gavin Wright and Howard Kunreuther, "Cotton, Corn, and Risk in the Nineteenth Century: A Reply," Explorations in Economic History, 14 (April 1977), 183-95.
27. On yeoman "independence" and its implications for class, race, and gender relations, see Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country (New York, 1995).
28. Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York, 1991);
29. Morton Rothstein, "The Antebellum South as a Dual Economy: A Tentative Hypothesis," Agricultural History, 41 (Oct. 1967), 373-83;
30. Lacy K. Ford Jr., Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Up country, 1800-1860 (New York, 1988);
31. Rachel N. Klein, Unification of a Slave State: The Rise of the Planter Class in the South Carolina Backcountry, 1760-1800 (Chapel Hill, 1990);
32. David F. Weiman, "The Economic Emancipation of the Non-Slaveholding Class: Upcountry Farmers in the Georgia Cotton Economy," Journal of Economic History, 45 (March 1985), 71-93;
33. David F. Weiman, "Farmers and the Market in Antebellum America: A View from the Georgia Upcountry," Journal of Economic History, ibid., 47 (Sept. 1987), 627-47;
34. David F. Weiman, "Families, Farms, and Rural Society in Preindustrial America," Research in Economic History, suppl. 5 (1989), 255-77.
35. For a penetrating survey of the farm economy that includes the antebellum North, see Allan Kulikoff, "The Transition to Capitalism in Rural America," William and Mary Quarterly, 46 (Jan. 1989), 120-44.
36. On some social and political implications of the transformation of the yeoman community, see Harry L. Watson, "Conflict and Collaboration: Yeomen, Slaveholders, and Politics in the Antebellum South," Social History, 10 (Oct. 1985), 277-85.
37. Morton Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 34-53;
38. Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992), 188-89, 324-25.
39. Gary Kulik, "Dams, Fish, and Farmers: Defense of Public Rights in Eighteenth-Century Rhode Island," in The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation: Essays in the Social History of Rural America, ed. Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude (Chapel Hill, 1985), 25-50.
40. A debate over the taxonomy of slavery has long flourished. See Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South (New York, 1965);
41. Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York, 1974);
42. Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (Boston, 1974);
43. Roben William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York, 1989);
44. James Oakes, The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders (New York, 1982).
45. On the debate as part of a larger scholarly discussion about capitalism, slavery, and underdevelopment throughout the Western Hemisphere, especially in Latin America, and on how key points in the dispute turn on matters of definition and political choice rather than empirical data, see Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude, "Introduction," Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation, ed. Hahn and Prude, 11-12. The story of southern shad fishermen casts light on the complexity of the issues. Here it was the fishermen, if anyone, who exhibited "precapitalist" thought and behavior, not the millers and slaveholders. By its nature, "paternalism" involved personal relationships binding a particular patron to his particular clients, relationships that a mass petition campaign tended to obscure. If paternalism was important in southern class relations, it thus appeared in other contexts than the petition wars over shad fishing. Indeed, since the expansion of mills was normally related to an expansion of slavery and market-oriented agriculture, the development of paternalistic social relations might follow dam construction rather than coincide with it.
46. See footnotes 6 and 7, above, for the literature on yeoman farming communities in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America. On Piedmont yeoman communities, see Robert C. Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community: Orange County, North Carolina, 1849-1881 (Knoxville, 1987).
47. William Byrd, "History of the Dividing Line," in The Prose Works of William Byrd of Westover: Narratives of a Colonial Virginian, ed. Louis B. Wright (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 184;
48. Charles Woodmason, The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution, ed. Richard J. Hooker (Chapel Hill, 1953), 15;
49. Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, Eng., 1990), 96-97, 104-7, 135.
50. John Brickell, The Natural History of North Carolina (1737; Raleigh, 1911), 263-64.
51. When water mills became commoner, millers were limited to one-eighth share as their fee for grinding. For nineteenth-century acts regulating the tolls of public mills, see Prince, Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia, 339;
52. Potter, Taylor, and Yancey, Laws of the State of North Carolina, I, 345;
53. Shepherd, Statutes at Large of Virginia, I, 137.
54. "To His Honor the Speaker, and Gent. of the House of Delegates," petition from Orange and Culpeper counties, Oct. 19, 1778, Culpeper County Legislative Petitions, 1776-1790 (Library of Virginia, Richmond);
55. Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York, 1975), 61-62.
56. North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey, 1891-192), vol. II: Hugh M. Smith, The Fishes of North Carolina (Raleigh, 1907), 122-29;
57. Charles H. Stevenson, "The Restricted Inland Range of Shad due to Artificial Obstructions and Its Effects on Natural Reproduction," Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, 17 (1897), 265-71.
58. Paul Hulton, America, 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White (Chapel Hill, 1984), 73, 75, 181;
59. John Lawson, A New Voyage to Carolina, ed. Hugh Talmage Lefler (Chapel Hill, 1967), 66, 93, 160, 163, 218;
60. Brickell, Natural History of North Carolina, 42.
61. Harry Roy Merrens, Colonial North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Historical Geography (Chapel Hill, 1964), 111-19.
62. "The Memorial of Sundry Citizens residing at and near Tiger River," Nov. 2, 1795, General Assembly Petition 1795-139-01 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History);
63. "An Act to authorize Shaler Hillyer . . . to build a mill-dam across Broad River. . . ." (1815), in Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia, comp. Lamar, 494-98;
64. Deposition of Archibald Boling, Dec. 1, 1828, General Assembly Petition ND-1030-09 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History); "Petition of the Citizens of Union District," c. 1828, General Assembly Petition ND-1030-13, ibid.;
65. Charles Howell, "Colonial Watermills in the Wooden Age," in America's Wooden Age: Aspects of Its Early Technology, ed. Brooke Hindle (Tarrytown, 1975), 120-59;
66. "Mill," in The Cyclopedia; Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, comp. Abraham Rees (41 vols., Philadelphia, 1810-1824), XXIV, n.p.
67. Fletcher M. Green, Constitutional Development in the South Atlantic States, 1776-1860 (Chapel Hill, 1930);
68. Jackson Tutner Main, "Government by the People: The American Revolution and the Democratization of the Legislatures," William and Mary Quarterly, 23 (July 1966), 391-407.
69. On the petitioning process in the early republic, see Ruth Bogin, "Petitioning and the New Moral Economy of Post-Revolutionary America," William and Mary Quarterly, 45 (July 1988), 391-425.
70. Like Bogin, I found that almost all petitioners for "public" objectives were white men. Most appeared to be signature-literate, but some documents contained clusters of names apparently signed by the same hand. For examples of petitions relating to communal food supplies, see "The Petition of sundry inhabitants of the County of New Hanover," H. Dec. 13, 1791, box 3, Petitions (Miscellaneous), session of Dec. 1791-Jan. 1792, General Assembly Session Records (State Archives, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh; the H. preceding a date indicates that a petition was originally introduced in the North Carolina House of Commons);
71. "The petition of the Subscribers. . . . ," Sept. 1792, H. Nov. 24, 1792, box 4, Petitions, session of Nov. 1792-Jan. 1793, ibid.;
72. "To the Honourable the Genl. Assembly of the State of No. Carolina now Siting," H. Nov. 27, 1792, ibid.
73. Hening, Statutes at Large, VI, 291-93,
74. Hening, Statutes at Large, VII, 321-22, 409-10,
75. Hening, Statutes at Large, VIII, 581-83.
76. Saunders and Clark, Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, XXIV, 460;
77. Cooper and McCord, comps., Statutes at large of South Carolina, V, 217-18, 278-79, 383, 508-9, 647-48, 700-701;
78. Clayton, Compilation of the Laws of Georgia, 80-81.
79. "The Petition of the freeholders and inhabitants of the Counties of Lunenburg and Mecklenburg," Oct. 31, 1776, Lunenburg County Legislative Petitions, 1776-1806 (Library of Virginia);
80. "To his Excellency Josiah Martin. . . ." [1771], in Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, comp. Saunders and Clark, IX, 87-88;
81. "The Petition of the Inhabitants of moore and other Counties. . . . ," Petitions, session of Nov. 1792-Jan. 1793. General Assembly Session Records;
82. "Your memorialists citizens of the county of Edgecombe. . . ," Petitions (Miscellaneous), box 6, session of Nov. 1830-Jan. 1831, ibid.
83. "To His Honor the Speaker, and Gent. of the House of Delegates," petition from Orange and Culpeper counties, Oct. 19, 1778, Culpeper County Legislative Petitions, 1776-1790.
84. Kemp Plumer Battle, "A History of the Rocky Mount Mills," in Herbert Bemerton Battle, The Battle Book: A Genealogy of the Battle Family in America (Montgomery, 1930), 177-82;
85. "The Petition of Sundry the Inhabetants of Nash County," Dec. 4, 1810, General Assembly Session Records;
86. "The petition of Sundry Inhebitents of Franklin County," Dec. 4, 1810, ibid.
87. "To the Honorable the Genel Assembly of the State of North Carolina" [1810], box 3, session of Nov.-Dec. 1810, General Assembly Session Records;
88. "We the inhabitants of the Counties of Nash & Edgecombe," ibid.
89. Wright, Political Economy of the Cotton South, 43-88.
90. All identified signers of these petitions were white men. The 1810 manuscript census returns listed by name only heads of households, but many signers may have lived in the households of others. This would account for the relatively low number of identifiable signers. The value of t for these two groups was 4.1, indicating a significant difference of means at the .0001 level. Manuscript Population Schedules, Edgecombe County, North Carolina, Third Census of the United States, 1810 (microfilm: reel 40, M 252), Records of the Bureau of the Census, RG 29 (National Archives, Washington, D.C.);
91. Manuscript Population Schedules, Nash County, North Carolina, Third Census of the United States (reel 41, M 252), ibid.
92. Manuscript Population Schedules, Johnston County, North Carolina, Third Census of the United States (reel 40, M 252), ibid.;
93. Manuscript Population Schedules, Wayne County, North Carolina, Third Census of the United States (reel 42), ibid.;
94. "The Petition of the undersigned Inhabitants of Johnston County," [1810], Petitions, box 3, session of Nov.-Dec. 1810, General Assembly Session Records;
95. "Whereas We the Inhabitance [sic] of the County of Wayne. . . . ," Nov. 20, 1810, ibid.
96. The value of t for these distributions was 3.2, which confirms a significant difference of means at the .0023 level. Manuscript Population Schedules, Johnston County, North Carolina, Third Census of the United States (reel 40, M 252), Records of the Bureau of the Census;
97. Manuscript Population Schedules, Wayne County, North Carolina, Third Census of the United States (reel 43), ibid.
98. In 1806, Freeman Killingsworth, owner of eight slaves, asked the Nash County court for a license to build a mill on Mocoson Creek, on the boundary of Nash and Johnston counties. See Nash County Mill Records, CR 069.928.3 (State Archives, North Carolina Division of Archives and History). Manuscript Population Schedules, Johnston County, North Carolina, Third Census of the United States, pp. 233-40 (reel 40, M 252), Records of the Bureau of the Census;
99. Manuscript Population Schedules, Wayne County, North Carolina, Third Census of the United States, pp. 802-46 (reel 43), ibid.
100. "The Petition of the inhabitants of Sussex County," Oct. 31, 1776, Sussex County Legislative Petitions (Library of Virginia);
101. "The Petition of Sundty the Inhabetants of Nash County," Dec. 4, 1810, General Assembly Session Records;
102. "The petition of the inhabitants of Montgomery County," Petitions (Miscellaneous), box 3, session of Nov.-Dec. 1805, General Assembly Session Records;
103. "To the Honorable The General Assembly of North Carolina," Nov. 1830, Petitions (Miscellaneous), box 6, session of Dec. 1830-Jan. 1831, ibid.;
104. "The petition and Remonstrance of the citizens Inhabiting the Fork, between the Broad and Saluda Rivers," Feb. 21, 1784, General Assembly Petition 1784-47 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History);
105. "The Petition of the Commissioners of Navigation on Broad and Pacolet Rivers and other citizens," Nov. 29, 1810, General Assembly Petition 1810-140, ibid.;
106. Clayton, Compilation of the Laws of Georgia, 459-60.
107. "To the Honorable the General Assembly of North Carolina," Nov. 1830, Petitions (Miscellaneous), box 6, session of Dec. 1830-Jan. 1831, General Assembly Session Records;
108. "Your memorialists citizens of the county of Edgecombe. . . . ," 1830, ibid.;
109. "The Remonstrance and petition of Sundry of the Inhabitants of Surry County," House Committee Reports (Propositions and Grievances - Miscellaneous), box 4, session of Nov. 1825-Jan. 1826, ibid. Ironically, the Edgecombe County petition was directed against a seine owned by the Rev. Joshua Lawrence, leader of the emerging Primitive Baptist denomination and normally a prominent foe of governmental favoritism.
110. "The Petition of the Inhabitants of Big Lynches Creek," Dec. 4, 1792, General Assembly Petition 1792-215-01 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History);
111. "To the honourable Senate and house of Representatives," Oct. 12, 1811, General Assembly Petition 1811-112, ibid.
112. Hening, Statutes at large, VIII, 361-62, 581-83,
113. Hening, Statutes at large, XII, 187-90;
114. Shepherd, Statutes at Large of Virginia, I, 136-39;
115. Saunders and Clark, Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, XXIV, 902-3;
116. Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large of South Carolina, VI, 340-41;
117. Lamar, Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia, 487-90.
118. The design of fishways for shad was difficult. In 1897, Charles H. Stevenson of the United States Fish Commission reported that numerous expensive devices to help shad over major dams were ineffective. Stevenson, "Restricted Inland Range of Shad," 268.
119. "The petition of the inhabitants of Sussex County," Oct. 31, 1776, Sussex County Legislative Petitions, 1776;
120. "Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Winton county," General Assembly Petition 1794-157-01 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History);
121. Petition of the Inhabitants of Abbeville and Laurens districts, n.d., General Assembly Petition 1800-137, "Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Winton county," ibid.;
122. Petition of the Inhabitants of Fairfield district, Nov. 10, 1811, General Assembly Petition 1811-116, "Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Winton county," ibid.
123. Petition from Union, Newberry, and Laurens districts, Nov. 20, 1808, General Assembly Petition 1808-30 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History); Petition of Robert Ellison and others of Darlington County, General Assembly Petition 1797-13, "Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Winton county," ibid.;
124. Samuel M. Gowdey to John H. Farnandis, Jan. 16, 1828, attached to General Assembly Petition ND-1030, "Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Winton county," ibid.
125. "Petition from Wake county and adjoining parts of Orange & Granville," box 1, Miscellaneous Petitions, session of April-May 1783, General Assembly Session Records.
126. For Richard Bennehan, see Jean Anderson, Piedmont Plantation: The Bennehan-Cameron Family and Lands in North Carolina (Durham, 1985), 1-14. Petition of the Union district. General Assembly Petition ND-1030-27 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History).
127. Laws Made and Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Maryland. . . 1825 (Annapolis, 1826), 83;
128. Petition of the Union, Newberry, and Laurens districts, Nov. 20, 1808, General Assembly Petition 1808-30 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History). Emphasis added. Strother, "North Carolina Illustrated," 435, 437.
129. Byrd, "History of the Dividing Line," 204-5.
130. Cf. Sellers, Market Revolution, 3-33;
131. Chaplin, Anxious Pursuit, 131-84.
132. "The pension of sundry inhabetants of the County of Halifax," Nov. 7, 1791, Halifax County Legislative Petitions, 1792-1796 (Library of Virginia);
133. "Petition of the inhabitants of Halifax county, Va. and Caswell county, N.C.," Nov. 15, 1796, ibid.
134. See also Halifax County Legislative Petitions, 1776-1791, 1792-1796, 1797-1805, "Petition of the inhabitants of Halifax county, Va. and Caswell county, N.C.," 1796, ibid.;
135. Mecklenburg County Legislative Petitions, 1792, "Petition of the inhabitants of Halifax county, Va. and Caswell county, N.C.," 1796, ibid.;
136. Pittsylvania County Legislative Petitions, 1776-1793, "Petition of the inhabitants of Halifax county, Va. and Caswell county, N.C.," 1796, ibid.
137. "Humble Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Cheraw District residing on and near the Stream of Black Creek," Dec. 9, 1797, General Assembly Petition 1797-014 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History);
138. "The Memorial of Sundry Citizens residing at and near Tiger River," Nov. 2, 1795, General Assembly Petition 1795-139-01, ibid.;
139. Clayton, comp., Compilation of the Laws of Georgia, 80-81;
140. Lamar, comp., Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia, 483.
141. Wood, To the President of the State Agricultural Society of North Carolina, n.p.; Petition from the residents of Little River in Fairfield District, General Assembly Petition 1811-116 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History).
142. See also petition from the Orangeburg District, on the Edisto River, General Assembly Petition 1787-08-01, To the President of the State Agricultural Society of North Carolina, ibid.
143. Silver, New Face on the Countryside, 114-15; Petition from Lunenburg County, Dec. 14, 1811, in Lunenburg County Legislative Petitions, 1807-1821 (Library of Virginia);
144. Clayton, comp., Compilation of the Laws of Georgia, 521;
145. Stevenson, "Restricted Inland Range of Shad," 268.
146. I am indebted to David Weiman for this observation.
147. "The Petition of Sundray Inhabetents Freholdeis in the County of Pittsylvany," Oct. 21, 1791. Pittsylvania County Legislative Petitions, 1776-1793.
148. See also "The petition of the inhabitants of Sussex County," Oct. 31, 1776, Sussex County Legislative Petitions, 1776;
149. "The petition of the Inhabitants of the County Halifax," Oct. 10, 1791, Halifax County Legislative Petitions, 1776-1791.
150. Lamar, comp., Compilation of the laws of the State of Georgia, 487. In an 1839 case commissioners offish sluices were successfully sued for trespass, for their unlawful destruction of commercial fish traps in the Congaree River. See Boatwright v. Bookman,24 S.C.L. (Rice) 447-48 (1839).
151. U.S. Department of State, Compendium of the Enumeration of the Inhabitants and Statistics of the United States, as Obtained at the Department of State, From the Returns of the Sixth Census (Washington, 1841), 158, 170, 182, 194, 206.
152. On commercial shad and herring fisheries in the nineteenth century, see Mark T. Taylor, "Seiners and Tongers: North Carolina Fisheries in the Old and New South," North Carolina Historical Review, 69 (Jan. 1992), 1-36.
153. For the techniques of small fishermen, see "The Petition of Thomas Mercer & Others of the County of Camden," Petitions, box 3, session of Nov. 1810-Jan. 1811, General Assembly Session Records. For commercial fishing practices, see the acts that sought to regulate them.
154. Laws of North Carolina, 1764, ch. XIII;
155. Laws of North Carolina, ibid., 1766, ch. XXI;
156. Laws of North Carolina, ibid., 1770, ch. XXI.
157. For examples in the early republican period, see Laws of North Carolina, ibid., 1819, ch. XCVIII, ch. XCIV, ch. CIII;
158. Laws of North Carolina, ibid., 1820, ch. LIII, ch. CV, ch. CXXII;
159. Laws of North Carolina, ibid., 1821, ch. LVIII, LXIII.
160. For the late antebellum period, see Jos. B. Skinner, Letter on the Subject of the Albemarle Fisheries (n. p., 1846);
161. North Carolina General Assembly, "Report of the Select Committee on Fisheries," Senate Document no. 22 (Raleigh, 1852);
162. Strother, "North Carolina Illustrated," 438-47.
163. James Cathcart Johnston to James Iredell Jr., April 12, 1807, Charles E. Johnston Collection, Private Collections (State Archives, North Carolina Division of Archives and History); Read v. Granberry, 30 N.C. (8 Ired.) 109 (1847); Capeheart v. Jones' Executor, ibid., 383.
164. Laws of North Carolina, 1764, ch. XIII;
165. William Tryon to Lord Hillsborough, Nov. 30, 1769, in Colonial and State Records, comp. Saunders and Clark, VIII, 153-54.
166. There were petitions or private acts respecting fish, seines, and milldams at virtually every session of the North Carolina General Assembly. For details, see Laws of North Carolina, 1764-1860, and General Assembly Session Records, passim.
167. "To the Honbl the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina," Nov. 17, 1840, Petitions, box 5, session of Nov. 1840-Jan. 1841, General Assembly Session Records;
168. Skinner, "Letter on the Subject of the Albemarle Fisheries," 7;
169. North Carolina General Assembly, "Report of the Select Committee on Fisheries," 182.
170. North Carolina General Assembly, "Report of the Select Committee on Fisheries," 182.
171. "Report of the Select Committee on Fisheries," Ibid., 181.
172. "Report of the Select Committee on Fisheries," Ibid., 183-84.
173. "Report of the Select Committee on Fisheries," Ibid., 181-82.
174. See, for example, "An Act to Remove Obstructions in the Pedee, Yadkin, and Wharie Rivers for the Purpose of Allowing Shad and Other Fish Free Passage Up the Same," Public Laws of the State of North Carolina . . . , 1870-71 (Raleigh, 1871), ch. 262, 418-20. The act required open passages of gradually diminishing widths in the channels of specific rivers extending from the South Carolina line to the town of Wilkesboro at the foot of the Blue Ridge.
175. General Assembly Report 1792-3 (South Carolina Department of Archives and History).
176. Stevenson, "Restricted Inland Range of Shad," 270;
177. Charles Epes, "Officials Begin Restocking Shad," Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 21, 1992;
178. Louis D. Rubin Jr., "On Catching Shad Fever at Fishing Creek," Southern Living, 13 (March 1978), 52-56.
179. Brickell, Natural History of North Carolina, 46.
180. McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds.
181. Ted Ownby, Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920 (Chapel Hill, 1990);
182. Stuart A. Marks, Southern Hunting in Black and White: Nature, History, and Ritual in a Carolina Community (Princeton, 1991);
183. William Elliott, Carolina Sports by Land and Water; Including Incidents of Devil-Fishing, Wild-Cat, Deer and Bear Hunting, Etc. (1846; Columbia, S.C., 1994);
184. McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds.