Piney Woods Planter and Amite Union Literary Reflector (Liberty, Miss.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
34 issues from 1838, published in Liberty, Mississippi, digitised for Chronicling America.
Located on the Louisiana border in the southwest corner of Mississippi, Amite County was created in 1809 in the Mississippi Territory, before statehood in 1817. With flat to hilly terrain and sandy and silt loam soil, the area was a rich agricultural and timber-growing region, forested with longleaf yellow pine. Cotton reigned supreme as the antebellum cash crop. The establishment of a seat of government to be known as Liberty was also authorized in 1809, and the town, located near a branch of the Amite River, was incorporated in 1828.
Begun in 1838, the Piney Woods Planter and Amite Union Literary Reflector was “Devoted to Literature, Politics, Science, Agriculture, Education, and General Intelligence &c.” After eleven months, the title was shortened to the Piney Woods Planter; both titles were also known as the Planter. The papers were four pages long and published weekly on Saturdays. John Tothill was the publisher throughout the run; with a change of partners in February 1839, Tothill simplified the title font and became editor as well, holding this position until 1840.
Quite partisan, in an article on the Mississippi press in the May 12, 1838 issue, the Planter declared itself a Democratic newspaper. Its motto, “There are only two sorts of government, one of, and the other over, the people;–we have sworn to support the former and oppose the latter” intimated Democratic sentiments against a strong central government. The papers included many editorials critical of…
- Genres
- Fiction and letters, News
- Published in
- Liberty, Mississippi, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress