Or, Subtitled: “Credit appeared to be turning enslavers’ Alabama dreams into reality. Alabama was already third in the United States in total cotton produced and first in per capita production” ~ Edward C. Baptist, “The Half Has Never Been Told”: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014), p. 93
In a previous posting, I tracked the life of Thomas Lewis Leonard (1781-1870), son of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, from his birth in Washington County, Maryland, through his years in Pendleton District, South Carolina from 1786 to 1808, and finally his years (1808-1818) spent in Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee.[1] As that posting notes, about 1800 in Pendleton District, Thomas married Sarah M. Lauderdale, daughter of John Lauderdale and Milbury Mauldin. The linked posting suggests that Thomas may have spent his years in Tennessee living on and farming his father’s land along with his father and several of his brothers. I base that deduction on the fact that I don’t find the younger Thomas buying and selling land in Lincoln County during his years there, though, as the posting shows, he entered twenty acres of land adjacent to his father’s large tract on Cane Creek, a branch of the Elk River, in January 1813. Thomas sold that piece of land and another tract of 135 acres to his uncle Colin Campbell in 1822 after he moved to Alabama. (For the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)
BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS 