In Search of Bisco by Erskine Caldwell

Author:Erskine Caldwell [Caldwell, Erskine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1722-1
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2011-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

11

THE DEEP, DANK, dark-brown alluvial soil of the flood plains of the Lower Mississippi River Valley covers a region of the Deep South fifty miles or more in width and nearly four hundred in length between Memphis and New Orleans.

The fertile alluvial deposits of humus, loam, mold, and mulatto-earth erosion, washed downstream to Bisco Country by centuries of rain and melting snow from the fields and forests of a third of the United States from Montana to Tennessee, created an agricultural paradise on both sides of the constantly flooding Mississippi River. But paradise would have been unproductive without Negro labor, and so first there was legally instituted slavery and then illegally imposed servitude.

This extensive region of alluvial flood plains, warmed by sub-tropical climate and watered by abundant rainfall, has always been called the Delta even though the actual geological delta of the Mississippi is far to the south of it.

It was nature’s unquestioned right to skim the richness of soil from a wide expanse of America and deposit it in the Delta. However, it was a questionable privilege that permitted plantation owners to acquire extraordinary wealth from the land by ruthlessly impoverishing the people who labored on it. Ownership of the land changed from generation to generation, but the feudal system went unchanged. The agricultural paradise also remains, as likewise does the family of man which has labored without equitable reward in a sociological and economic hell-hole since the days of slavery.

The Yazoo Basin is one of several flood plains formed by nature on the east side of the Mississippi River—and wholly within the State of Mississippi—and its plantation land is now securely protected from over-flowing river waters by dikes and levees. The Yazoo River itself—like the Big Black and the Bayou Pierre—is one of the many muddy tributaries of the Big River.

More than half of the people living in the Yazoo Basin are Negroes of Angola and Guinea slave descent who are employed seasonally for a few months of the year to plant, pick, and bale its cotton. However, even though the Yazoo Basin is thickly populated by Negroes, they are only a small portion of the Delta Negroes living on both sides of the Mississippi River between Memphis and New Orleans whose extreme poverty makes ordinary American poverty elsewhere appear enviable by comparison.

The unemployed and destitute person of either race in a city slum or Appalachian ravine can stand in line and receive government-issued food stamps or welfare relief checks. Agricultural workers in the Delta, by unconscionable legislation, are excluded from government relief programs.

The unemployed and destitute Negro farm laborer in the Delta can only hope that the rumors he occasionally hears will come true and that he will be one of the fortunate who will receive a donation of food and clothing from somebody somewhere who is concerned about his plight and knows where to find him. Food and clothing collected in Memphis or Nashville by churches, labor unions, and civic clubs are always sufficient to spread

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