Biographical Sidebar:
Mary J. Jones

After her husband's death in 1863, Mary Jones, like other Southern white women of the era, found herself with new responsibilities. With her two sons serving in the Confederate army and then living far from home, she struggled on her own to operate the family's three plantations.

"The Children of Pride" book cover

In a series of letters written to her children (and published in 1972 in the acclaimed volume The Children of Pride), Jones described the difficulties of operating a plantation in early Reconstruction -- crop failures, black resistance to white supervision, constant disputes over labor contracts.

She had considered her former slaves "friends," she wrote, but now they were "only laborers under contract, [with] only the law between us."

At her childrens' urging but with great reluctance, Mary Jones moved to New Orleans to live with her married daughter at the end of 1867, renting her plantations to former slaves. She died there two years later.

Previous page PreviousNext Next page

Copyright 2003
A New Birth of Freedom: Reconstruction During the Civil War he Meaning of Freedom: Black and White Responses to Slavery From Free Labor to Slave Labor Rights and Power: The Politics of Reconstruction Introduction The Ending of Reconstruction Epilogue: The Unfinished Revolution Resources Credits for this Exhibit