Abner Green
{{Short description|American planter (died before 1827)}}
File:"100 Reward" Abner Green, Natchez -- The Western Spy, and Miami Gazette, March 9, 1803.jpg
Abner Green (b. 1762 – d. bef. 1817{{Cite news |date=1817-05-07 |title=Twenty-five Dollars Reward |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/natchez-gazette-twenty-five-dollars-rewa/153307066/ |access-date=2024-08-15 |work=Natchez Gazette |pages=1}}) was a wealthy planter of the Natchez District in West Florida, later Mississippi, United States.
Biography
Abner Green was reportedly born January 21, 1762 in James City County, Virginia, the son of Thomas Marston Green Sr.{{Cite book |title=History and genealogy of the Greens, Carpenters, Dilleys, Ushers |id=FHL 3461497 |last=Dilley |first=Ora Iona |year=1986 |location=Vicksburg, Mississippi |url=http://www.familysearch.org/library/books/idviewer/697806/14 |access-date=2024-08-15 |via=familysearch.org}} {{free access}} Green was in the Natchez district by 1784 when he sold a man and woman, both 50 years of age, to Richard Harrison for $490. In 1787 he and his brother Thomas M. Green Jr. bought 11 slaves, some native to Jamaica and Africa, from Daniel Clark for $6,050.{{Cite book |last=McBee |first=May Wilson |url=https://archive.org/details/natchezcourtreco00mcbe/page/44/mode/1up |title=The Natchez court records, 1767-1805 : abstracts of early records |date=1953 |publisher=Ann Arbor, Michigan : Edwards Brothers, Inc. |others=Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center |pages=25, 44}}
In March 1801, a traveler on the River recorded that he went "...out to Abner Greens with his father Col. Thomas Green; stayed all night; Green has a fine farm is very rich. Thursday 23d; After breakfast went to old Col. Hutchins. The Colonel returned with me to Mr. Greens to dinner; Greens wife is Hutchins daughter: in the evening returned to Col. Hutchins and stayed all night; spent the time very agreable, a fine Old Lady 3 daughters. At this farm the Old Gentleman has a very extensive stock of every kind; I saw near 300 calves the best garden I ever saw anywhere; George Bell the Barber came to stay with us. Friday 24th; After breakfast we came to Natchez; Old Col. Green myself called at Major Bingamans stayed to dinner; very kind people..."{{Cite journal |last=Buckner |first=Philip |date=1926 |title=Diary of Captain Philip Buckner |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1921270 |journal=The William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=173–207 |doi=10.2307/1921270 |issn=1936-9530}} Anthony Hutchins, the father of Abner Green's wife Mary Hutchins, was an important figure in the politics of colonial Mississippi.{{Cite journal |last=Grant |first=Ethan |date=2022-03-15 |title=Anthony Hutchins: A Pioneer of the Old Southwest |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol74/iss4/4/ |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly |volume=74 |issue=4}}
He served as the treasurer of Mississippi Territory from about 1802 to 1804,{{Cite web |title=488-0413-01.tif - Mississippi Territory Administration Papers, 1769, 1788-1817; n.d. |url=https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/territorial/s488/detail/8397 |access-date=2024-08-15 |website=da.mdah.ms.gov |language=en}} having been appointed by William C. C. Claiborne sometime before April 1802.{{Cite news |date=1932-04-08 |title=Notes on Concordia Parish |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/tensas-gazette-notes-on-concordia-parish/153308386/ |access-date=2024-08-15 |work=Tensas gazette |pages=3}} A traveler of 1808 described him as having one of the most "conspicuous" plantations in the vicinity of Natchez, and recorded that "I had now come twelve miles, and it being excessively hot, I stopped at Mr. Green's to request some fodder for my horse, to which Mr. Green obligingly added an invitation to dinner to myself. After dinner, Mr. Green invited me to look at his garden, which was very spacious, and well stocked with useful vegetables, and understanding that I had been in the West Indian islands, he made me observe some ginger in a thriving state, and the cullaloo or Indian kail, also some very fine plants of Guinea grass, which he proposes propagating."{{Cite book |last=Cuming |first=Fortescue |url=https://archive.org/details/sketchesoftourto00cumi/page/297/mode/1up |title=Sketches of a tour to the western country : through the states of Ohio and Kentucky, a voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and a trip through the Mississippi territory, and part of West Florida, commenced at Philadelphia in the winter of 1807, and concluded in 1809 |date=1810 |publisher=Pittsburgh : Cramer, Spear & Eichbaum |others=University of Pittsburgh Library System}} Abner Green lived near Second Creek, on a plantation called the Grange.{{Cite news |date=1869-11-03 |title=Judge Lewis Dent |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-vicksburg-herald-judge-lewis-dent/153312871/ |access-date=2024-08-15 |work=The Vicksburg Herald |pages=1}} According to one of his sons-in-law, Abner Green was one of the planters to whom future president Andrew Jackson sold slaves.{{cite book |last=Sparks |first=W. H. |author-link=William Henry Sparks |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009596570 |title=The memories of fifty years: containing brief biographical notes of distinguished Americans and anecdotes of remarkable men |publisher=Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger |year=1870 |location=Philadelphia |pages=149–150 |language=en-us |hdl=loc.gdc/scd0001.00100906478 |lccn=06005624 |oclc=1048818176 |ol=23365380M}} {{PD-inline}}
In his will dictated in 1809, he arranged for the manumission of "Betito and his wife Bess" bequeathing them $700 as well as "cows + calves, three breeding sows, two good work creatures, one yoke of oxen, and one hundred pounds of bacon, fifty pounds of sugar and coffee, and twenty acres of land."{{Cite journal |last=Chancery Court of Adams County |date=2023-02-16 |title=Green, Abner - Will of Abner Green, governing the disposition of real and person property |url=https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/lantern-hnf/148/ |journal=Historic Natchez Foundation}} Green helped organize the Bank of the Mississippi in 1810.{{Cite news |date=1810-02-12 |title=Bank of Mississippi |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-carolina-federal-republican-bank-of/153306728/ |access-date=2024-08-15 |work=The Carolina Federal Republican |pages=3}} Also in 1810, Green's son Thomas H. Green was murdered by two men they had enslaved.{{Cite news |date=1810-02-12 |title=Murder of Abner Green son of Thomas H. Green, Feb 6, 1810. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-weekly-democrat-murder-of-abner-gree/7266786/ |access-date=2024-08-15 |work=The Weekly Democrat |pages=3}} Two slaves were convicted of the crime and executed April 23, 1810, at Washington, Mississippi Territory.{{Cite news |date=1810-04-23 |title=The two negroes... |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-weekly-democrat-the-two-negroes/154401849/ |access-date=2024-09-01 |work=The Weekly Democrat |pages=3}}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{Cite journal |last=Hamilton |first=William B. |date=May 1948 |title=Politics in the Mississippi Territory |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815950 |journal=Huntington Library Quarterly |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=277–291 |doi=10.2307/3815950}}
External links
- [https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/lantern-hnf/164/ Estate administration record, Mrs. Mary H. Green, in account current with James Green, 1816-1827, Abner Green Estate File, Box 16, Adams County Probate Records, Historic Natchez Foundation]
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Category:American slave owners