Sam Bowers Hilliard understood power—not the kind that flows from political office or great wealth, but the power of the land itself. Born in 1930, in a Georgia hamlet that bore his mother’s maiden name, Hilliard grew to recognize how the soil, the crops, and the very food on Southern tables shaped the course of history.
Hilliard joined the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University in 1971, bringing with him a keen understanding of the antebellum South, evidenced by his landmark study, Hog Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1800-1860. His contributions to the field were many, from his tenure as Chair of the Department to his work as one of the three principal consultants for the National Geographic Society’s Historical Atlas of the United States.
In retirement (1993), Hilliard returned to his roots to chronicle the tales of Hart County as if closing a circle begun long ago in the red clay and pines. There, he set about chronicling the churches and schools of Hart County, ensuring that his little postage stamp of the world would be remembered for more than just moonshine and mule tracks.[1]
The Reviews
I believe I’ve read every review in the academic literature, and with the exception of one or two outliers, they all read roughly the same.
Professor Hilliard’s Atlas of Antebellum Southern Agriculture, published in 1984 by Louisiana State University Press, was a long overdue correction. For far too long, scholars had ignored the spatial realities of the South’s agricultural development, preferring instead to focus on broad narratives about slavery and plantations. What Hilliard did was map the actual land itself—charting the crops, livestock, and human settlement patterns across the antebellum South.
In this atlas, Hilliard does what narrative history often cannot—he shows us the movement of a region in a way that words alone cannot capture. His 111 maps reveal patterns that shaped a region and a nation. He shows us the stark contrast between the densely cultivated black belt and the sparsely settled pinelands, the march of cotton across the Mississippi Delta, and the unexpected predominance of small farms in a land synonymous with plantations.
The Atlas covers six fundamental topics: the land, climate, population, slavery, livestock, and both major and minor field crops, with a particular emphasis on the period from 1810 to 1860. Hilliard’s definition of the Old South encompasses the states of the Confederacy plus the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland, though he omits West Texas and South Florida due to their sparse population. His use of dot, choropleth, and isorithmic maps, primarily based on county census data, allows for a high degree of locational and comparative data concentration.
In terms of crop production, the Atlas illustrates that corn was a mainstay crop for the region as a whole. Among commercial staples, it shows the heavy concentration of cotton production in the river bottom black belts of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, and the Mississippi River delta lands, while rice, tobacco, and sugar cane were more restricted to specialized areas.
Hilliard observes cattle spread uniformly across the Old South, merging with Mexican herds in Texas. While sheep and swine concentrated in Kentucky and Tennessee, hogs and mules became widespread later on. The mule and oxen, he says, were the real heavy lifters behind it all.
Hilliard’s Atlas, while not without its critics, stands as an essential reference alongside Lewis Cecil Gray’s History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860.[2]
Related Reading
Culture in the South edited by W.T. Couch
Atlas of American Agriculture
Climatic Atlas of the United States
History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 v. 1
History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 v. 2
Avery Craven: Soil Exhaustion As A Factor In The Agricultural History Of Virginia And Maryland, 1606-1860
Frank L. Owsley: Plain Folk of the Old South
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[1] Source for bio. The book is out of print.
[2] The reviews are here. A very negative review outlier appears in the Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985). For a technical review see The American Cartographer 13.3, 1986.
I’ve had the pleasure of having Dr. Hilliard as a professor during my years at LSU. He had a very entertaining way of teaching yet was thorough in his treatment of a subject. I later heard him speak at UT while I was a studen in Knoxville. It was so good to see and hear him again. His beer can collection was always a fun subject. The demography of the beer can fascinated him. Thank you Chase for writing this review of a work which should be better known.
How much of a percentage of the cotton and tobacco grown in the South was grown using slave labor and how much was grown by my ancestors just trying to make a living competing with slave labor?
Speaking of “moonshine and mule tracks”, when I was just knee high to my father he took me to see the movie “Thunder Road” starring Robert Mitchum about Moonshiners. It was not a movie for children if you don’t know. A Disney movie of that era it most definitely was not. In the movie, the Moonshiners were I guess you could say the anti-hero good guys. Dad never mentioned why he took me to see that movie, but it made a lifelong impression on me. It helped shape my character as a self reliant, low tax decentralization believer, a proud no apologies Southerner, and loyal to family man among other traits. There was always a bit of the renegade in my father’s character which I respect and still get a big kick out of given his otherwise totally respectable character and behavior. So, thanks Dad for making me understand that ‘Runnin’ shine, ain’t no crime.’ Or did I misunderstand the message.
If you’re interested, check out the 1858 Persac’s map of the lower Mississippi River. It listed the cotton and sugar plantations from Natchez to New Orleans.
Good job, Chase Steely!