Stephen Duncan
Stephen Duncan
BornMarch 4, 1787
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedJanuary 29, 1867(1867-01-29) (aged 79)
New York, New York, U.S.
Resting placeLaurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia
EducationDickinson College
Occupation(s)Plantation owner, banker
Known forWealthiest cotton planter in the South prior to the American Civil War; second largest slave owner in the country
Spouse(s)Margaret Ellis
Catherine Bingaman
​
(m. 1819)​
Children(with Margaret): John Ellis Duncan, Sarah Jane Duncan
(with Catherine): Stephen Duncan Jr., Charlotte N. Duncan, M. L. Duncan, Henry P. Duncan

Stephen Duncan (March 4, 1787 – January 29, 1867) was an American planter and banker in Mississippi during the 19th century. He was born and studied medicine in Pennsylvania, but moved to Natchez District, Mississippi Territory in 1808 and became the wealthiest cotton planter and the second-largest slave owner in the United States with over 2,200 slaves. He owned 15 cotton and sugar plantations, served as President of the Bank of Mississippi, and held major investments in railroads and lumber.[1]

In the 1830s, Duncan was one of the co-founders of the Mississippi Colonization Society and helped purchase land in West Africa, known as Mississippi-in-Africa, to create a colony for relocation of free people of color from the state.

He was a Southern Unionist during the American Civil War and declined to offer assistance to the Confederate cause. He was ostracized in Mississippi due to his pro-Unionist stance and moved from Natchez to New York City in 1863.

Early life and education

Stephen Duncan was born on March 4, 1787, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania[2] to John Duncan and Sarah Postlethwaite. His family were early settlers to the Cumberland Valley in Pennsylvania and his grandfather received a land grant from King George III of Great Britain.[3]

In 1793, Duncan's father was killed in a duel when Stephen was only six years old. His mother remarried Ephraim Blaine in 1797.[4]

He received a medical degree from Dickinson College in 1805.[5] After graduation, he moved to Philadelphia and lived with his mother and sisters while apprenticing as a physician under Benjamin Rush.[4]

Duncan married Margaret Ellis, and they had two children together, John Ellis and Sarah Jane Duncan. After his wife died, Duncan married again in 1819, to Catherine A. Bingaman.[6] They had four children: Stephen Jr.; Charlotte N., M. L., and Henry P. Duncan.[7]

Pre Civil-War career

Duncan's Duncannon and Homochitto plantations can be seen in this map of plantations in Carroll Parish, Louisiana and Issaquena County Mississippi

In 1808, shortly before the War of 1812, Duncan moved as a young man to Natchez District, Mississippi Territory,[8] a developing river town that was important for trade along the Mississippi River.[2][5] In the pre-Civil War South, Natchez became a thriving city due to the booming cotton industry. In Natchez, he became a banker and planter.[9][10] He served as the president of the Bank of Mississippi.[11] The Bank of Mississippi charter was revoked in 1831 and Duncan became one of the founders of the Agricultural Bank of Natchez in 1833.[12]

Duncan purchased the Auburn mansion in Natchez, Mississippi in 1827

Duncan purchased Auburn plantation from Lyman Harding in 1827.[13]

Duncan owned 15 cotton and sugar plantations[1] including L'Argent, Camperdown, Carlisle, Duncan, Duncannon, Duncansby, Ellisle, Homochitto, Middlesex, Oakley, Rescue, Reserve, Attakapas, and Saragossa.[2][7] He also owned shipping, railroad and lumber businesses in Mississippi and New England.[1] He was a partial owner of the Erie & Kalamazoo, Columbus, Pequa & Indiana, Terre Haute & Richmond and Panama railroads.[14]

Duncan sold his crops through the merchant firm Washington, Jackson & Co. in New Orleans, instructing them to sell it through their subsidiary Todd, Jackson & Co. in Liverpool, England.[10] The revenue derived from the cotton and sugar sales was sent to Charles P. Leverich & Co., his bank headquartered in New York.[10] His plantations yielded returns of US$150,000 annually.[10] As a result of these financial transactions, Duncan became the richest cotton planter. In the 1850s, Duncan owned more than 1,000 slaves, making him the largest resident slave holder in Mississippi.[2][15] By 1860, Duncan's ownership of 858 slaves in Issaquena County made him second nationally to the estate of Joshua John Ward of South Carolina, which enslaved 1,130.[16]

While Duncan enjoyed the Mississippi weather during the winter months, he spent most summers away from Natchez and escaped the heat with his family to Philadelphia, Saratoga Springs, New York or Newport, Rhode Island.[17]

Colonization efforts

Map of Liberia in the 1830s, where the Mississippi colony and other state-sponsored colonies are identified.

Duncan became a backer of the American Colonization Society.[18] In the 1830s, together with major slave owners Isaac Ross, Edward McGehee, John Ker, and educator Jemeriah Chamberlain, president of Oakland College, Duncan co-founded the Mississippi Colonization Society. Their goal was to relocate free blacks and newly freed slaves to the developing colony of Mississippi-in-Africa in West Africa.[19] The organization was modeled after the American Colonization Society, but it focused on freedmen from Mississippi. They bought a portion of land for the colony. Free blacks were thought to threaten the stability of slave societies, and Mississippi's population had a majority of slaves, outnumbering whites by a three-to-one ratio.[19] The Mississippi colony eventually became part of Liberia.[11]

American Civil War and postbellum career

During the Civil War, Duncan remained a steadfast Unionist. He declined to offer any assistance to the Confederate cause[14] and was ostracized by other Southerners.[11] With investments worth $1,060,000 unrelated to his plantations, he was able to live comfortably regardless of the outcome of the war.[2] In 1863, Duncan left Natchez and moved to New York City.[2] He unsuccessfully attempted to lobby the Lincoln administration to protect his slaveholdings in Union occupied Mississippi.[18]

Death

Stephen Duncan gravestone in Laurel Hill Cemetery

Duncan died on January 29, 1867, in New York City. He was buried in the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1]

Legacy

In 1910, his heirs donated the Auburn mansion and its gardens to the city of Natchez. The mansion and grounds were designated as Duncan Memorial Park by the city of Natchez.[20]

See also

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 Brazy, Martha Jane (19 April 2018). "Stephen Duncan". Mississippi Encyclopedia. Center for Study of Southern Culture. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Engerman, Stanley L. (1976). Owens, Harry P. (ed.). Perspectives and Irony in American Slavery. University Press of Mississippi. p. 107. ISBN 9781617034534.
  3. ↑ Brazy 2006, p. 4.
  4. 1 2 Brazy 2006, p. 5.
  5. 1 2 David G. Sansing, Sim C. Callon, Carolyn Vance Smith, Natchez: An Illustrated History, Plantation Pub. Co., 1992, p. 88
  6. ↑ Brazy 2006, p. 18.
  7. 1 2 Louisiana State University Library: Stephen Duncan Correspondence
  8. ↑ Brazy 2006, p. 6.
  9. ↑ Ann Patton Malone, Sweet Chariot: Slave Family and Household Structure in Nineteenth-century Louisiana, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1992, p. 287
  10. 1 2 3 4 Harold D. Woodman, King Cotton and His Retainers: Financing and Marketing the Cotton Crop of the South, 1800-1925, Beard Books, 199, p. 160
  11. 1 2 3 Huffman, Alan (2004). Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 91–92. ISBN 978-1-60473-753-0. - Read online. Access date: June 20, 2021.
  12. ↑ Scarborough 2006, p. 224.
  13. ↑ William P. Baldwin, Elizabeth Turk, Mantelpieces of the Old South: Lost Architecture in Southern Culture, The History Press, 2005, p. 192
  14. 1 2 Scarborough 2006, p. 237.
  15. ↑ 'Plantation Economy', American Cotton Planter, N. B. Cloud, 1854, Volume 2, p. 118
  16. ↑ Blake, Tom (2004). "The Sixteen Largest American Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules". Ancestry.com.
  17. ↑ Scarborough 2006, pp. 32–33.
  18. 1 2 Pinkser, Matthew. "Dickinson and Slavery". www.housedivided.dickinson.edu. Dickinson College. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  19. 1 2 Mary Carol Miller, Lost Mansions of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2010, Volume II, pp. 53-54
  20. ↑ "Auburn Museum & Historic Home". www.auburnmuseum.org. Retrieved 26 June 2021.

Sources

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