WILLIAM ETHELBERT ERVIN JOURNALS, #247, 1839-1856
Plantation diaries of ERVIN, cotton planter and owner of Liberty Hall Plantation in Landaus
County, Mississippi. Entries record slave birth and death dates, information on buying and
selling slaves, the hire of slaves owned by others, distribution of blankets, hats, and other
clothing to slaves, payments made to slaves for their "Christmas work," and occasional
accounts of the amount of cotton picked by slaves. ERVIN also wrote rules for slave conduct
and punishment, including guidelines on the handling of quarrels, the duties of husbands and
wives, absence from the plantation, and curfew (1847). Microfilm
available.
