Z 1211.000 Black (Narcissa L.) Diaries

Z 1211.000 SM
BLACK (NARCISSA L.) DIARIES

Narcissa (Narsissa) Locke Erwin Black, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary Erwin, was born on August 27, 1810, in Sumner County, Tennessee. By 1827, the Erwins had moved to McNairy County, Tennessee, becoming one of the first families in the area. Narcissa Erwin met John H. Black, Jr., the son of a local plantation owner. They married on December 15, 1836. Upon his father’s death in 1861, John H. Black, Jr., inherited the family plantation and four slaves: among them, Chany Scot Black. The Black plantation was located near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, site of the Battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862. The plantation was raided by Union troops several times throughout the Civil War.

During the Civil War, John H. Black, Jr., was ill with pneumonia. His wife Narcissa maintained the family household by selling and bartering textiles that she and Chany Scot Black produced. John H. Black, Jr., died on April 17, 1865, and bequeathed to Narcissa Black control of the family plantation and $46.75 in cash. To augment her income from cotton production, Black continued her production of textiles, aided by Chany Scot Black, now a freedwoman. Narcissa Black was also forced to sell tracts of land and auction household items to raise funds. These items were bartered for goods or sold with Black’s cotton crops in nearby Corinth, Alcorn County, Mississippi.

Narcissa Black also attempted to recoup financial losses incurred during the Civil War by traveling to Purdy, Tennessee, to determine if she qualified for compensation: she believed she was denied because she was not allied with the “Radical Republicans.” In 1878, Narcissa Black married millwright and farmer James A. Johnson. The couple lived with Johnson’s son-in-law, N. Franklin Cherry, in McNairy County, Tennessee. Narcissa lived until the age of eighty-three, outliving her second husband. She died on July 11, 1894, and was buried beside her first husband, John H. Black, Jr., in the Erwin family cemetery outside of Selmer, McNairy County, Tennessee.

Chany Scot Black was born on March 1, 1818, as a slave of John H. Black, Sr. She had two sons, William Porter (b. May 22, 1838) and Albert Alfonso (b. January 31, 1847). Chany Scot Black was a seamstress and a weaver, and worked with Narcissa Black daily. After the Civil War, Chany Scot Black and her family remained near Narcissa Black. With the aid of Narcissa Black, Chany Scot Black purchased her own loom and established her own textile business. She also continued to work for Narcissa Black. On October 8, 1870, Chany Scot Black’s son, Albert Alfonso Black, was pursued by the Ku Klux Klan for a “fals report” (sic) and was forced to leave the area. Two years later, on September 17, 1872, Chany Scot Black left Sumner County, Tennessee, and did not return.

Scope and Content:

This collection consists of two diaries and accompanying material. The collection complements the Museum of Mississippi History’s Black Collection of quilts (87.42.1-4). The two diaries of Narcissa L. Black document the daily life of a woman on a plantation during the Civil War.

Series Identification:

1. Series 1: Diaries. 1861-1884; 1894; n.d. 2 boxes, 2 folders.

   Narcissa Black wrote in her diary daily from January 1861 to December 1871. After 1871, the entries become infrequent, and end in 1884. Several Arm and Hammer paper labels, dated 1894, are included in the diaries. A few of the entries contain personal information about the author; most have notations on the weather, the status of textile projects, and work records of farm employees. The first diary of Narcissa Black contains daily entries from 1861 to 1865. Black records all aspects of running her plantation as well as the events of the Civil War that affected Black’s area of Tennessee. The second diary of Narcissa Black continues with her daily entries from 1866 to 1884. The entries document Black’s expanding textile business and efforts to maintain the family plantation. Also included is a paper fragment with the handwritten note “Kendrick and Sissy Erwin was married December 29, 1868.”

   Roll # 36149
   Box 1
   Box 2
   Box 3, folders 3-4

2. Series 2: Accompanying Material. 1838-1840; 1875, n.d. 5 folders.

   Accompanying the Narcissa Black diaries are an undated page of the Black family Bible record listing the birth and death dates of both Narcissa and Chany Scot Black family members; a newsclipping of a poem entitled “Proof Positive”; a partial letter, dated May 16, 1875, to “Aunt Black” from an unidentified relative in Texas; an 1838 land sale contract and an 1840 land sale deed between John O. Griffis and Jacob Stonebraker for a tract in Fayetteville, Lincoln County, Tennessee.

   Roll # 36149
   Box 3, folders 1-3
   Box 4, folders 1-2

Box List:

• Box 1, folder 1: Pages 159-160; 175-176 of 1861-1865 Diary.
• Box 1, folder 2: Diary. 1861-1865.
• Box 2, folder 1: Diary. 1866-1884.
• Box 3, folder 1: Accompanying material: partial letter, 1875.
• Box 3, folder 2: Accompanying material: land sale contract, 1838.
• Box 3, folder 3: Accompanying material: newsclipping, n.d.
• Box 3, folder 3: Diaries: paper labels, 1894.
• Box 3, folder 4: Diaries: paper fragment, n.d.
• Box 4, folder 1: Accompanying material: land sale deed, 1840.
• Box 4, folder 2: Accompanying material: Black family Bible page, n.d.