Diaries of Robert Henry Cartmell: A Cotton Planter in Antebellum Madison County, Tennessee, 1849-1860

Robert Henry Cartmell (1828-1915) was a young man on his own for the first time, making his start as a cotton planter in West Tennessee in the 1850s. What began simply as a means to account for his farming activities ultimately evolved into a personal diary of thirty-three (likely thirty-four) volumes through the mid to late nineteenth century and into the first quarter of the twentieth century. Each book chronicled not only his life, but the lives of his family and neighbors, as well as incidents, events, and deaths that took place in Jackson and Madison County, Tennessee. He shared his daily trials and triumphs on the farm, interactions with his enslaved people, his personal life, interest in politics, and opinions about the escalating tensions between North and South over the institution of slavery. This is the first volume of Robert Cartmell’s transcribed and annotated diaries.