WEBVTT - Ep. 130: The Mississippi River - The Delta (Part 2) 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:08.600 After the West had been one, the gold had been gotten. 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:14.280 This was the last frontier in America, this god forsaken twump. 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.560 Telling the story as big as the one The Mississippi 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.520 River has is a challenge. Like its drainage basin, which 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:25.400 stretches from New York to Idaho all the way down 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.040 to the Gulf of Mexico, its reaches wide and diverse, 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.239 like its stories. The end of episode one was like 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.280 coming to an intersection that split into seven different roads 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:42.080 that all looked equally as promising. Each road a story 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:44.960 I have simply chosen in a direction that suits me 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.519 and seems logical. I want to talk about the settlement 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.280 of the Mississippi Delta and the people who were here 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:55.400 and the challenges that gave them their identity. Will be 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.040 veering out of the river into its floodplain, because, as 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:03.360 William Faulkner said, to understand the world, you must first 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:08.200 understand a place like Mississippi. Once again, we'll be leaning 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.080 on author Hank Berdine and New York Times bestselling author 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:16.039 John Barry, and a new voice to bear grease, mistery 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.120 and I's dear friend raised in the Delta, mister Earl Jasper. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:21.840 This is as. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.720 Unique a bear Grease as we've ever made. I really 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:27.520 doubt you're gonna want to miss this. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:32.520 One faith family community help keep you grounded, help keep 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.759 your mind straight, and kept you to the point where 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.080 you said, Okay, this is where it is right now, 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.800 and you won't have to deal with this always just 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:41.800 stay focused. 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.360 My name is Clay Nukem, and this is the Bear 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:58.400 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.160 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:06.320 story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:12.680 Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.240 fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:29.680 places we explore. It's not like most rivers, beautiful to 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:33.040 the site, not one that the eye loves to dwell 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.320 upon as it sweeps along, nor can wander along its 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.400 bank or trust yourself without danger to its stream. It 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:45.200 is a furious, rapid, desolating torrent, loaded with alluvial soil, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:50.760 pouring its impetuous water through wild tracks. It sweeps down 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:55.639 whole forest with its course, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.000 whirled away by the stream now loaded with a mass 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.840 of soil which nourish their roots, often blocking up and 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.919 changing the channel of the river, which, in its anger 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:10.960 at being opposed inundates and devastates the whole country around. 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.040 It is a river of desolation, and instead of reminding you, 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:17.960 like other rivers, of an angel which has descended for 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:24.720 the benefit of man, you imagine it a devil. A 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.520 European traveler wrote this about the Mississippi River in eighteen 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:34.040 thirty seven. I saw this in John Berry's book Rising Tide. 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:38.000 She's a real beast. The Mississippi River drains parts of 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.200 thirty one states and two Canadian provinces, and forty one 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.760 percent of the continental United States if you count the 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.960 Missouri River its tributary. The Mississippi is the longest river 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.760 in the world. Only the Amazon and the Congo have 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:57.400 larger drainage basins. We misstated in the last episode and 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.360 said that the Nile had a bigger drainage basin, but 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.040 the Big Muddy has a bigger drainage basin than the Nile. 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.560 The river slopes in an average of three inches per mile, 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.080 runs through some of the flattest ground in the world, 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.360 with average speeds around nine miles per hour and eighteen 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:18.080 In a flood, the riverbed can scour sixty feet deep 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.839 and fill itself back in in a month. At flood stage, 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.920 the river can pump out over four million acre feet 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.640 of water per day. In the last episode, we learned 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.080 about the energy of rivers, their hydraulic complexity, and their 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.480 drive to carry sediment. We learned about levees and dikes 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.760 and jetties and cutoffs, and got a sense of the 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.320 river's sheer size. We've learned about some of the early 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.160 human history of the river and its importance to America. 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.640 And if you'll give me the liberty, we're going to 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:50.279 focus on the people in one particular part of the 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:54.839 Lower Mississippi, a place called the delta. But we first 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.960 have got to define the big concept of the delta. 0:04:58.000 --> 0:04:59.880 There's two deltas. Stay with me. 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.520 A river delta is a triangular shape made by the 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:07.440 deposition of sediment as moving water intersects a non moving 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.919 body of water, and the slowing speed makes the sediment 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.520 settle out and from above this would look like a 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:19.120 triangle like the Greek letter delta. The true geologic head 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.440 of the Mississippi delta starts at Cape Girardo, Missouri and 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.840 runs all the way to New Orleans. At one time, 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:30.600 the Gulf of Mexico extended far north into America and 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.560 the river filled in the ocean with sediment, building this 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:39.159 big delta. However, the term Mississippi Delta can mean a 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.839 more specific region in Mississippi and Arkansas, and when people 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.640 say the delta in the South, they're often referring to 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.760 the alluvial floodplain of the Mississippi from Memphis to Vicksburg, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.279 which also includes the floodplain of the Yazoo River, which 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.960 flows through the interior of Mississippi and empties into. 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:57.920 The river at Vicksburg. 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.599 This delta also includes the west side of the Mississippi 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.839 in this stretch in Arkansas. It's the delta inside of 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:12.279 the Delta. Here's our Captain Hank Berdine from Chatham, Mississippi, 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:14.560 introducing us to the delta. 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.159 What we call the Mississippi Delta was on alluvial bottom 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.040 land on a Lousville hardwood bottomland of the Azoo and 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:28.039 the Mississippi deltas it was an impenetrable jungle flooded every year. 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:34.200 It was solid hardwoods and then the swamp areas, cypress trees, 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:40.640 your oxbow lakes, willow trees, cypresses. You could hardly walk 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:45.680 through a lot of the areas along the riparian banks 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.120 of the rivers, creeks and streams in here because of 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.160 the dense, dense cambrige, and you couldn't walk from unless 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.000 you hacked them with a cane knife or follow the 0:06:56.040 --> 0:07:00.640 game trail. In the woods itself, the trees were comparable 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:05.520 to a lot of the Redwoods and all right in California, 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:11.240 because you had these massive oaks, some of them sixteen 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:16.760 eighteen feet in diameter, with a canopy over the top 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.280 that shaded below. So you didn't have a lot of 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.200 trees underneath that brush because the something couldn't. 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:23.960 Get to them. 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:25.960 But then you'd get up next to a creek and 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.360 there was a cane break that you couldn't walk through, 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:35.560 and it was an impenetrable jungle. It was loaded with bear, wildcats, panthers, alligators, 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:40.560 alligator snapping turtles, alligator gau You had monstrous cotton mouthed 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:46.080 water markings and diamondback rattlesnakes. It was a wildlife paradise, 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:48.360 but you couldn't hardly get in here. 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:54.120 It's hard to imagine these ancient virgin forests and cane breaks. 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.280 And he didn't mention the waterfowl super highway the river 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.200 was and still is today. The incredible the natural resources 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.680 of the Delta were protected by the flooding of the 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:08.120 river far longer than most places in America. Mississippi became 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.360 a state in eighteen seventeen, but much of the western 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.960 side of the state, the river side, was undeveloped until 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.560 after the Civil War. The government levees of the late 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.600 eighteen hundreds made this region habitable, but before levees it 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.600 was a wild place. Here's an excerpt from John Berry's 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:28.520 book Rising Tide. 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.600 About the pre civilized Delta. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.680 The land, wrote another traveler, was a jungle equal to 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.920 any in Africa, with dense forests of cane and giant 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.679 trees from which hung great, clinging vines of wild grape 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.880 and muskydine. The density of growth suffocated, choked off air, 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.720 held in moisture, and a pulsating heat was so thick 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.920 a horse and rider couldn't penetrate. Even on foot. One 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.719 needed to cut one's way through. Only the trees, some 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.440 hundred feet high, burst above the choking vines and cane 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.960 into the sunshine. Stinging flies, gnats, and mosquitoes swarmed around 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.960 any visitors. One pioneer reported killing fourteen bears in eight days. 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.680 One warned of wolves and the fatted alligator, while the 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.360 panther basket at the river's edge, and the cane breaks 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.400 almost impervious to man, nearly as large as a young calf. 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.400 They're the most savage looking animal I ever saw. Their strong, 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.600 sinewy legs with large hooked claws like a cat, could 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:32.720 tear a man to pieces in a trice if they 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:36.640 chose to the wild animals, the rattlesnakes, and water moccasins. 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.160 The yellow fever and malaria made it worried. One settler quote, 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.280 almost worth a man's life to cast his lot in 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.400 the swamp. Yet the river made it worth the risk. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.160 The river left gold in the delta. It was gold, 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.240 the color of chocolate. Gold that was not in the earth, 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.840 but was the earth elsewhere. One measures the thickness of 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.960 good top soil and inches here good lush soil measures 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:04.440 tens of feet thick. A nineteen oh one report published 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.720 by the American Economic Association said, quote, nature knows not 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.000 how to compound a richer soil. A nineteen oh six 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.640 scientific assessment concluded that the nutrients and the soil were 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.240 unexcelled by those of any other soil in the world. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:24.160 The Delta, however, overwhelmed individual farmers. To take the land 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.160 from the river, to clear it, to drain it, and 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.720 protect it required an enormous outlay of capital and labor. 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:35.040 From the first the Delta demanded organization, capital, entrepreneurship, and 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:41.560 gambling instincts. It was a place for empire. That's a 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:46.040 wild place. Here's hank with how this jungle the river 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.680 side of the Mississippi was settled, and it. 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:54.800 Will not until before the Civil War that the Delta 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.960 even began being cleared. Folks would come down the river 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.439 from Kentucky, get on the river bank, which every river 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.000 has a riparian bank, which builds a natural levee on 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.040 it itself. As the floods come and the water overflows 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:16.040 the banks, what it does. The heavier particles come out first. 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:20.920 That is your sandier particles, your heavy loamy type things 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.080 will drift down and away from that bank. You get 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:30.480 into bottom, lower areas, and that's where your real silty, fine, 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.480 fine sands, fine dirt and loam settle down. That's what 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.680 we call buckshott gumbo. It's a real heavy clay type dirt. 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.959 Your sandier upper ground we call sandy loan call it 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.280 ice cream, ice cream dirt. I mean, you can go 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.400 out there and throw curnel of corn out there and 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.800 next thing you know, you got corn crop. You know, 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:54.680 it's some of the most fertile dirt that we've said 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.600 in the world. So the only area is beginning to 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.600 be cleared and for cotton well on the Missippi Ruver. 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.199 The only agriculture on the western side of the Mississippi 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.199 before the Civil War was right along the banks of 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.520 the Mississippi River. They didn't penetrate into the interior of 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:18.960 the Delta. That's important to understand. In eighteen seventy nine, 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.800 less than ten percent of the Delta was developed. That 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.760 means ninety percent of it was virgin forest. It truly 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:31.080 was a wilderness. And here's how they eventually got inland. 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:36.120 During that time, there were no roads. There weren't no railroads. 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:38.280 There was no way to get in here. Here's a swamp. 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:44.640 So the state of Mississippi gave rights of way, huge 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:49.199 tracks of rights of way to railroad companies to begin 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:54.440 opening up the Delta for cotton production and logging. So 0:12:54.640 --> 0:13:00.320 once the railroad companies realized the high rout that they 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.600 needed to take to get into the Delta, then they 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.120 began nudging into the North Delta out of Memphis and 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.920 off of those railroad lines. They'd run what we called 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:10.880 little dummy lines. 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:12.640 Didn't they have what. 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:17.520 We call a groundhog. Sawmell easily moved Sawmell. And because 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.719 of the timber, the oak, the ash, the cypress, the 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:26.280 pecan that came out of the Mississippi Delta, Memphis became 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.480 known as the hardwood capital of the world. They were 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:34.320 producing more hardwood than anywhere else because of the Mississippi Delta. Now, 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.600 as those lands were cleared by the timber companies, if 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.280 it was good ground, they would sell off those excess 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:46.400 rights of ways to folks coming in from Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.079 different areas to continue the clearing and open up for 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:50.800 cotton production. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.440 The railroads opened up new country paid for by logging. 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.440 At this time, wood was the primary construction material for 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:03.720 almost everything that man made. Once the land was cleared, 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:08.360 it went into private ownership for farms. Here's some perspective 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:15.760 on the timing of the settlement of the Delta. 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.120 During that time in early eighteen hundreds on up through 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:21.120 the middle eighteen hundreds, as the West was being opened up, 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:25.520 Transcontinental Railroad was completed, the gold rush had gone on 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:30.520 in California. They had already cut the majority of the 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.560 timber in the northeast, and then they hit the northwest, 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:40.240 the Redwoods, the big Sequaliya areas, Washington State. This was 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:45.360 the very last area in the country. The timber here 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:51.760 was massive. I would ask my mama men conversations, what 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.920 is so unique about the Delta. It say it's the people, 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.960 and I would say, yes, that's absolutely a never disputed 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.920 my mama on anything, but I would say, yes, it 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.800 is the people. And I want to love step further 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:11.160 the people that win the Delta. Then, after the West 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.320 had been one, the gold had been gotten, this was 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:20.120 the last frontier in America, this god forsaken swamp. And 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.120 those people that came in here were true pioneers. They 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.920 were in an uninhabitable place trying to eke out a 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.520 living in some of the best dirt in the world. 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.160 So when I think of that it's that pioneering spirit 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.800 that helped create the Delta, to make the Delta what 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:44.080 it is today. And a lot of the people that 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.320 are in the Delta right now today. I said, grandparents. 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.040 It's not a great great grandparents, I said, grandparents that 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:55.560 were true pioneers that came in here opening this place up. 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:02.240 Hank's grandparents cleared land for and started farming and helped 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.920 found the town of Ruleville, Mississippi. It's not intuitive to 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.840 think that the Mississippi Delta region of this country was 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.720 one of the last to be settled. We typically think 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.560 of the West being the last region settled. However, nowhere 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:20.360 else had such a giant flooding river. It wasn't until 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.800 after the big government levees of the late eighteen hundreds 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.480 that this region was truly safe to live in, well, 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:29.440 sort of safe. 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.640 As all of that was happening, the Delta was being 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.840 cleared from the top downtrod to bottom. William Faulkner would 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.960 come in here and hunt. He called it to big Woods, 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.160 and he saw what was happening and wrote in one 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:51.040 of his books that the Mississippi Delta was deaniy rivered, deswamped, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:56.560 and denuded in two generations. Once those railroads started coming in, 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:57.880 and that's what happened. 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:00.880 Once they learned how to live in the delta, it 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:05.320 opened up fast and furious. If you remember Bear Grease 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.320 Hall of Famer, Hulk Callier, a former enslaved man, was 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.080 a market hunter who sold bear meat to logging camps 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.760 in the late eighteen hundreds. He was legitimately believed to 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.399 have killed three thousand bears in his lifetime. 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:19.800 He was a hound hunter. 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.880 You can hear that whole series on Bear Grease episode 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.560 sixty eight, seventy and seventy two. It's all about Hulk Callier, 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.280 and I hope you remember that. Our boat Captain Hank 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:34.240 Berdine is one of the guardians of Hult Collier's legacy 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:38.119 in Mississippi. He and Minor Ferris Buchanan worked hard to 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:43.320 get Holt's grave turned into a monument in downtown Greenville, Mississippi. 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.800 Hank can hardly talk about Holt without crying. I think 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:53.480 that's something. William Faulkner, who Hank talked about, was from 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.920 Mississippi and is considered one of the greatest American writers 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.359 of the twentieth century, who rebirthed the Southern narrative to 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.639 the country. He was known for his elaborate prose and 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:08.560 for using multiple narrators called stream of consciousness writing. But 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.120 his big theme was exposing the sense of tragedy carried 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.720 by the people in the South after the Civil War. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:19.040 This place was war torn and beat up. Falkner was 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.760 known for writing about the complex racial issues in the South. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.360 Here's the quote that Hank was talking about. It's from 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.680 Falkner's book, Go Down Moses, written in nineteen forty. I've 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.760 slightly revised this quote, omitting a touch of the original language. 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:35.480 Here. 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:35.920 It is. 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.600 This delta, he thought, this delta, this land which man 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.800 has de swamped and denuded and derivered in two generations, 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.920 so that white men can own plantations and commute every 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.439 night to Memphis, and black men own plantations and writeing 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.639 Jim Crow cars to Chicago to live in millionaire's mansions 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.280 on Lake Shore Drive, where white men rent farms and 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.159 live like black people, and blacks crop on shares and 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.800 live like animals, where cotton is planet and grows man 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.600 tall in the very cracks of the sidewalks, and usury 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:18.160 and mortgage and bankruptcy and measureless wealth, Chinese, African, Aran 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:22.120 and jew all breed and spawn together until no man 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.560 has time to say which is witch, nor cares no wonder. 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:30.040 The ruined woods I used to know don't cry for retribution. 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:37.080 The people who have destroyed it will accomplish its revenge. 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.960 It's clear that, like the natural system of the river, 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.560 the history of this place is complex. I don't fully 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.560 claim to understand what Faultner meant, except for one part. 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.080 He was saying that the people who destroyed the physical delta, 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.879 drained her swamps and cut her ancient trees, will self 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:59.720 inflict the land's revenge. He connected the social challenges of 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.879 the South to its treatment of the land, which is 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:04.000 an interesting thought. 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.159 It's almost like the richness. 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.399 Of the soil bred a unique kind of human greed. 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.800 But the South doesn't stand out in this country as 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.360 the only place that has abused the land. The impact 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:21.200 of civilization and all that that includes has been widespread, 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.840 and interestingly, it seems like we're having social issues everywhere. 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.640 I have a question for John Berry about the delta. 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:33.639 So there was a quote in the book from a 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:38.600 geologist in eighteen fifty seven, and he said, whatever the 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.280 delta of the Nile may have once been will only 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:44.080 be a shadow of what this alluvial plain of the 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:47.200 Mississippi will be. It will be the central point, the 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:51.159 garden spot of the North American continent where wealth and 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:56.320 prosperity culminate. This was in eighteen fifty seven, about the 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.199 time that man really started to put his hand on 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:03.960 the river. Much of the Delta was still virgin wilderness 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:05.960 at that time, a lot of it. So this is 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.720 like the beginning, a look into the future of what 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.720 this land could be. And as I read that, that 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.560 doesn't sound like what the Delta became. 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.760 Well, you know the Delta, and again we're talking not 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.679 just when you say delta. People may think the Mississippi Delta, 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.560 technically the Yazu Mississippi Delta, but it really means a 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:31.960 much larger area. But that had that area has been, 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:37.400 you know, a tremendous agricultural producer, you know, whether or not, 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:40.520 obviously best known for cotton, but there's a lot more 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.800 than cotton. So I think in that sense, the prediction 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.080 you know, pretty much came true. In terms of poverty, 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:54.080 that's a different story. You know, you have some of 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.879 the greatest discrepancies anywhere in the country, and you know 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.800 some of those some of those counties, you know, are 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:06.000 among the poorest in the United States. The poverty, obviously 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:11.720 is a relic of slavery and the sharecrops system which 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:17.720 persisted after slavery, when a tremendous amount of exploitation of 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:22.199 African Americans, you know, the school systems didn't get the 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.560 same support that you know, white schools did, and so 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:26.400 forth and so on. 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:31.480 I just read the same quote to longtime Mississippi resident 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.760 Wilbert Primos, the one from eighteen fifty seven, and I 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:37.560 asked him if he thought the geologists prediction of the 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:39.520 Delta's success came true. 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:40.879 Here's what he said. 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:43.800 I think that it did. I mean, if you look 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:49.600 right before the Civil War, Natchez had more millionaires than 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:54.199 any city in the United States, all made from the 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.959 Delta on the Louisiana side of Missippi side, agriculture, agriculture 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:01.560 the hardy South side. And of course slavery was a 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:05.800 huge part of that. And to understand that and how 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:09.719 that came about, you know, it was to have cheap labor, 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:11.919 and then they were brought to the Delta to be 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.520 a part of that process. They even got Italians. That's 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.800 why there's so many Italian farmers from the Mississippi Delta now, 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:21.280 because they were brought over here. 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:24.480 From Italy to be the labor right to be sharecroppers. 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:27.399 In John Barry's book, it talks about how there were 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:32.800 in Italy. There were signs on however they were traveling 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:35.680 to get here by boat that said if you're going 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:39.760 to Mississippi or if you're going to Arkansas, basically you. 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:41.200 Should reconsider it's a trap. 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:44.560 It's a scam because they brought over all these Italians 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:48.200 that to be sharecroppers, and it was like a failure. 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:51.720 I mean, they were really mistreated and weren't the deal 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:53.880 wasn't as good as it should have been. But there's 0:23:53.880 --> 0:23:56.720 still lots of Italian immigrants in the South. 0:23:56.520 --> 0:23:59.040 That's right. And then living conditions were deplorable. 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:04.719 For a long period of time before the Civil War, Natchez, 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.800 Mississippi claimed to have more millionaires per capita than anywhere 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:13.639 in the United States. That's a wild stat Here's Hank 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:18.280 describing a very unusual happening in Delta culture, one that 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:19.360 you might not expect. 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.640 But during this time, as these places were opened up 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:29.440 and these families were coming down here in Virginia, Kentucky, 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:35.080 South Carolina somewhat, if you may say, aristocratic families, that's 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:37.320 where they came from. That's what they'd been used to. 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:41.120 They'd build big houses, I don't like to call them 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:45.640 mansions into Delta, we call them big house. Every big 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:49.200 place had a big house. And in those big houses 0:24:49.680 --> 0:24:54.360 you had libraries that were filled with Shakespeare, pros Keats, 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:58.600 all of these literary volume from all over the world 0:24:59.080 --> 0:25:02.280 to teach people we used to having around, used to reading. 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:09.160 Most of those houses had music rooms filled with grand pianos, cellos, harpsichords. 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:13.320 The music that would be played in those during party time, 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:20.320 during social seasons was unbelievable. And because of that influence, 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:26.080 so to speak, there was a literary and artistic cultural 0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:30.520 whether it was a revolution or just a happening that 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:36.159 was here. And the Percy family in Greenville, William Alexander 0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:41.439 Percy was a poet, a world traveler, and his house 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:45.480 was filled with people from all over the world as 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:48.560 they traveled and knew him and would come in here 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:51.840 and visit with him, and sometimes they'd stay for a 0:25:51.920 --> 0:25:54.320 year at a time. Some folks would come in and 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:56.760 stay and write whole books while they stayed at the 0:25:56.840 --> 0:26:01.639 Percy matching which we called it in Greenville, Langston Hughes, 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:06.400 Carl Sandberg, Malvina Hoffman, who studied under all ghost re dain. 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:11.959 You had Walker Percy, Shelby foot hiding carters. You had 0:26:12.000 --> 0:26:16.320