{"id":45758,"date":"2016-02-24T04:12:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T04:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45758"},"modified":"2016-02-24T17:21:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T17:21:17","slug":"the-true-story-of-the-free-state-of-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45758","title":{"rendered":"The True Story of the \u2018Free State of Jones\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/history\/true-story-free-state-jones-180958111\" target=\"_blank\">The True Story of the \u2018Free State of Jones\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Smithsonian Magazine<\/a><br \/>\nMarch 2016<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.richardgrant.us\/\" target=\"_blank\">Richard Grant<\/a><\/strong>; Photographs by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.widmerphoto.com\" target=\"_blank\">William Widmer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3EMkxEKKSQI?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>A new Hollywood movie looks at the tale of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mississippi\" target=\"_blank\">Mississippi<\/a> farmer who led a revolt against the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Confederate_States_of_America\" target=\"_blank\">Confederacy<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>With two <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rat_Terrier\" target=\"_blank\">rat terriers<\/a> trotting at his heels, and a long wooden staff in his hand, J.R. Gavin leads me through the woods to one of the old swamp hide-outs. A tall white man with a deep Southern drawl, Gavin has a stern presence, gracious manners and intense brooding eyes. At first I mistook him for a preacher, but he\u2019s a retired electronic engineer who writes self-published novels about the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rapture\" target=\"_blank\">rapture<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Apocalypse\" target=\"_blank\">apocalypse<\/a>. One of them is titled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jrgavin.com\/sal-batree.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sal Batree<\/em><\/a>, after the place he wants to show me.<\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"552\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/history\/true-story-free-state-jones-180958111\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/public.media.smithsonianmag.com\/\/filer\/5b\/c3\/5bc3c14d-825f-42e1-8991-f73bbcf7eb1f\/mar2016_e06_freestatejones.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small>On his property, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jones_County,_Mississippi\" target=\"_blank\">Jones County\u2019s<\/a> J. R. Gavin points out a site that was a hide-out for <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Newton_Knight\" target=\"_blank\">Newt Knight<\/a>. \u201cThe <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Confederate_States_Army\" target=\"_blank\">Confederates<\/a> kept sending in troops to wipe out old Newt and his boys,\u201d says Gavin, \u201cbut they\u2019d just melt into the swamps.\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.widmerphoto.com\" target=\"_blank\">William Widmer<\/a>)<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>I\u2019m here in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jones_County,_Mississippi\" target=\"_blank\">Jones County, Mississippi<\/a>, to breathe in the historical vapors left by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Newton_Knight\" target=\"_blank\">Newton Knight<\/a>, a poor white farmer who led an extraordinary rebellion during the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Civil_War\" target=\"_blank\">Civil War<\/a>. With a company of like-minded white men in southeast <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mississippi\" target=\"_blank\">Mississippi<\/a>, he did what many Southerners now regard as unthinkable. He waged guerrilla war against the Confederacy and declared loyalty to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Union_(American_Civil_War)\" target=\"_blank\">Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the spring of 1864, the Knight Company overthrew the Confederate authorities in Jones County and raised the United States flag over the county courthouse in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ellisville,_Mississippi\" target=\"_blank\">Ellisville<\/a>. The county was known as the Free State of Jones, and some say it actually seceded from the Confederacy. This little-known, counterintuitive episode in American history has now been brought to the screen in <em>Free State of Jones<\/em>, directed by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gary_Ross\" target=\"_blank\">Gary Ross<\/a> (<em>Seabiscuit<\/em>, <em>The<\/em> <em>Hunger Games<\/em>) and starring a grimy, scruffed-up <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Matthew_McConaughey\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew McConaughey<\/a> as Newton Knight.<\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"552\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/history\/true-story-free-state-jones-180958111\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/thumbs.media.smithsonianmag.com\/\/filer\/10\/12\/10127a9a-1a0f-47c7-8f79-26ca2ce0cee8\/mar2016_e09_freestatejones.jpg__800x450_q85_crop_upscale.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small>As great-granddaughters of Newt and Rachel, Dorothy Knight Marsh, left, and Florence Knight Blaylock revere their past: \u201cIt\u2019s a very unusual, complex family,\u201d says Blaylock. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.widmerphoto.com\" target=\"_blank\">William Widmer<\/a>)<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&#8230;After the Civil War, Knight took up with his grandfather\u2019s former slave Rachel; they had five children together. Knight also fathered nine children with his white wife, Serena, and the two families lived in different houses on the same 160-acre farm. After he and Serena separated\u2014they never divorced\u2014Newt Knight caused a scandal that still reverberates by entering a common-law marriage with Rachel and proudly claiming their mixed-race children.<\/p>\n<p>The Knight Negroes, as these children were known, were shunned by whites and blacks alike. Unable to find marriage partners in the community, they started marrying their white cousins instead, with Newt\u2019s encouragement. (Newt\u2019s son Mat, for instance, married one of Rachel\u2019s daughters by another man, and Newt\u2019s daughter Molly married one of Rachel\u2019s sons by another man.) An interracial community began to form near the small town of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Soso,_Mississippi\" target=\"_blank\">Soso<\/a>, and continued to marry within itself&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/history\/true-story-free-state-jones-180958111\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The True Story of the \u2018Free State of Jones\u2019 The Smithsonian Magazine March 2016 Richard Grant; Photographs by William Widmer A new Hollywood movie looks at the tale of the Mississippi farmer who led a revolt against the Confederacy With two rat terriers trotting at his heels, and a long wooden staff in his hand, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,459,8,1459,20],"tags":[23056,1457,1456,4374,23057,10478,23059,23058],"class_list":["post-45758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-history","category-media-archive","category-mississippi","category-usa","tag-j-r-gavin","tag-newt-knight","tag-newton-knight","tag-rachel-knight","tag-richard-grant","tag-smithsonian-magazine","tag-the-smithsonian-magazine","tag-william-widmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45758"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45766,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45758\/revisions\/45766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}