Which counties are part of the Alabama Black Belt Heritage Area?
Working the Land: Rural Life, Rural Heritage
Experiments and Innovations in Work and Education
As the Black Belt rose as an agrarian society with cotton as “king†and corn as “prime minister,†it was a region of large plantations and later, a heavy farm tenancy. The settlers who emigrated to the Black Belt from the older states along the eastern seaboard came to farm the rich soil, and with them, they brought the “peculiar institution†of slavery.
The Cotton Kingdom Era
The Black Belt divides Alabama north to south and the settlement, economics, politics, and culture of the area have been largely shaped by the thick, dark soil. The discovery of this area, coupled with a meteoric rise in the demand for cotton that began around 1800, set the stage for the growth of the new agricultural market leader. Though the Black Belt soil was viewed by early settlers as too poor for farming, they quickly discovered that the soil was extremely fertile and ideal for cotton planting, and "Alabama Fever" set in.
Dynamic River Roads
Substantial trade towns and cities - Cahawba, Claiborne, Selma, Camden, and Demopolis - sprang up along the riverbanks to facilitate the shipping of Black Belt cotton through the port city of Mobile to supply the increasingly wealthy planters with incoming goods and services. During the early years, flat bottom boats, each carrying up to 100 bales of cotton, plied the waterways, but upstream travel was very difficult. Often after a downstream trip, these boats were dismantled and the lumber sold in Mobile, leaving the crew to walk home.
