RootsWeb is funded and supported by
Ancestry.com and our loyal RootsWeb community.
Learn more.
About Us | Contact Us | Copyright | Report Inappropriate Material
Corporate Information | Privacy | Terms and Conditions | CCPA Notice at Collection
For links, names and addresses of Issaquena County area libraries, local government offices, area newspapers, state government divisions, and the research information those entities offer, be sure to consult the Issaquena Genealogy and History Project Researchers' Directory.
BROWSE THE ISSAQUENA GENEALOGY AND HISTORY |
![]() Just before the Civil War, Issaquena County, Mississippi had the highest concentration of slaves in the United States. With the slave population making up 92.5% of the county's total population, Issaquena County was home to some of the largest cotton plantations in the nation. Many of those massive plantations were owned by absentee planters from the Natchez area of Mississippi and other parts of the nation. On this web site is a collection of valuable information regarding Issaquena County slave research, including the entire 1860 Federal Census slave schedules for Issaquena County and links to other valuable information including the Eustatia plantation ledger. For further research with your slave ancestors, consult these excellent research links below: AfriGeneas
American Civil War Research Links The United States Civil War Center
Message Boards, Queries and Mailing Lists for Issaquena County Rootsweb.com
Message Board
1907 Issaquena County Profile Issaquena County was established January 23, 1844, during the first administration of Governor Albert G. Brown. Its name is an Indian word meaning deer river. Its territory was formerly embraced within the limits of Washington county, and its limits were defined as all that part of Washington county south of a line, “commencing on the Mississippi river between townships 13 and 14, and running east, between said townships, to the western boundary of Yazoo county. March 29, 1876, together with Washington county, it contributed to form the county of Sharkey.
Issaquena constitutes
one of the later subdivisions of the so-called New Purchase acquired from
the Choctaws in 1820. It is a long, narrow county on the western border
of the State, in the Mississippi and Yazoo delta, and is bounded on the
north by Washington county, on the east by Sharkey and Warren counties,
on the south by Warren county and on the west by the Mississippi river.
It has a small population composed very largely of negroes and possesses
no towns of any size. It has a land surface of 473 square miles. Its wealth
lies in its fertile plantations and its extensive and heavily timbered
Other small towns in the
county are Duncansby and Chotard, on the river, and Valley Park, Grace
and Booth on the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley R. R., which touches the
county at its northeastern and southeastern extremities. The Mississippi
river washes most of its western boundary, affording excellent and cheap
transportation by steamboat. Other waters are Deer creek, on the eastern
border; Steele’s Bayou, Lake Lafayette, Moon Lake, Five Mile Lake and
When the soil is properly handled, it will raise from one to two bales of cotton per acre and from forty to eighty bushels of corn. Too much attention has been paid to raising cotton in the past and not enough to the production of corn, oats and meat, for which the region is peculiarly adapted. The twelth United States census, 1900, yields the following statistics:
Number of farms, 1,646; acreage in farms, 90,676; acres improved, 55,052;
value of land exclusive of From:
|
THE ISSAQUENA GENEALOGY AND HISTORY PROJECT |