John J. Poindexter

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John J. Poindexter
"Slaves for Sale" New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 27, 1856

John Jenkins Poindexter (c. 1816–1870) was an American slave trader, commission merchant, school commissioner, and steamboat master of Louisiana and Mississippi. He served in the Mexican-American War as a junior officer in the Mississippi Rifles. The historic John J. Poindexter House in Jackson, Mississippi, was commissioned for the young Poindexter family and designed in the 1840s by architect William Nichols.

Biography[edit]

Born in Virginia around 1816, Poindexter may be related to the family that produced George Poindexter, an early Mississippi governor, and James Preston Poindexter, an abolitionist minister of Ohio. It is unknown when Poindexter relocated to what was then the southwestern frontier, but a 22-year-old J. J. Poindexter, occupation mechanic, appears on the manifest of a ship called Columbia traveling between Galveston and New Orleans in 1838.[1]

Poindexter appeared in the 1840 U.S. census as a resident of Hinds County, Mississippi.[2] Poindexter married Mary A. Cohea in Hinds County, Mississippi in May 1840.[3] Her father Perry Cohea was a Mississippi building commissioner.[4] In 1840 Poindexter was in partnership with M. E. Thomas as a wholesale and commission merchant of Jackson, Mississippi.[5] The John J. Poindexter House in Jackson, Mississippi was designed by architect William Nichols on a commission made by Poindexter's father-in-law.[4] Mary Cohea Poindexter died near Jackson, Mississippi in January 1843, leaving behind a surviving infant.[6]

Row of men on right with guns firing at men on horseback approaching on left
Watercolor of The Defeat of the Mexican Lancers by the Mississippi Rifles by Samuel Chamberlain (c. 1860)

Poindexter joined the Masonic lodge in Jackson in 1844.[7] John J. Poindexter served as a second lieutenant or 3rd corporal[8] in Company H, the Vicksburg Volunteers[9] of the 1st Regiment of Mississippi Rifles, known colloquially as Jefferson Davis' regiment.[10] That regiment was organized to serve in the Mexican–American War for a year, from June 1846 to June 1847.[10] Poindexter may have been discharged in November 1846.[11]

As of the 1850 census, Poindexter lived in Tensas Parish, Louisiana with his nine-year-old son; the head of the household was Thomas B. Poindexter.[12] Poindexter was evidently selling people as slaves by 1852 because a fugitive slave ad placed in the Daily Delta that year offers a $20 reward for the recovery of a man named Primus who could read and write and had been purchased from John J. Poindexter.[13] In May 1857 Poindexter announced "Just received, Fifty young and likely Field Men and Women, Also five Carpenters, three Blacksmiths, one No. 1 Barber, three Seamstresses, four fine Male House Servants and Carriage Drivers, and one Cooper. For sale at the lowest market rates by J. J. POINDEXTER, 71 and 73 Baronne street."[14] In October 1857 Poindexter was seeking the return of an 18-year-old named Ruffin with "lips very much scarred" who was the legal property of Daniel Craig of Arkansas.[15] Also in October 1857 a 21-year-old "griffe color" man named Simon escaped from Poindexter's slave depot at 63 and 65 Barrone Street in New Orleans.[16] Simon was described as slow of speech and "badly scarred on the back from having been whipped." Poindexter offered a reward of $25 if Simon was returned or deposited in any of the city jails.[16]

In 1860 John J. Poindexter appeared in the federal census of New Orleans with occupation "slave depot," and personal property worth $40,000. His nearest neighbors were the households of his business partner Montgomery Lyttle, and another slave trader, R.H. Elam.[17] He was listed on the 1860 slave schedules as personally owning three people.[18] The Poindexter & Little slave depot in New Orleans appears in the 1914 biography of Allen Allensworth, a survivor of American slavery:[19]

The next day, under a Negro driver, they were marched out of the slave mart here, double file to the steamboat landing at Memphis and placed on a packet for New Orleans. In due time they arrived and were driven like cattle to the Negro mart of Poindexter & Little, where there were over a thousand Negroes, each one waiting for a master. The rules and regulations of this mart were altogether different from those of Memphis. In this mart the Negroes were classified and seated on benches, as goods are arranged on shelves in a well regulated store. The cooks, mechanics, farm-hands, house-girls, seamstresses, wash-women, barbers, and boys each had his or her place. They were dressed in blue cloth clothing, tight-fitting jackets with flat brass buttons, and had the appearance of convicts. ¶ In this mart, or 'nigger' pen, as it was called, were confined over one thousand souls, it being one of the largest in New Orleans. These people were under strict rule and discipline. It was equipped with every known device and implement of torture. There was Uncle Billy with a gigantic physical frame, who looked as if he drank ox blood at every meal, whose business it was to give the cat-o'-nine-tails when a man or woman was assigned to the 'horse.' This 'horse' consisted of a four-legged litter: on it were rings and straps, used to secure the victim to it. Many times were men and women sent out to Uncle Billy to be punished, possibly in compliance with the instructions of their owners, who, when placing these folks, ordered that for so many days they were to be given from 10 to 50 lashes a day on their naked backs.

In April 1861, in his capacity as the Common Schools Commissioner of Arkansas County, Arkansas, Poindexter offered for sale two sections of land, totalling 1,280 acres.[20] (These may have been the school sections created under the Public Land Survey System.)

Skipwith's Landing, Mississippi River c. 1864
John Jenkins Poindexter signature, Confederate amnesty application, 1865
"The Splendid Passenger Packet Countess, J. J. Poindexter, master," Vicksburg Daily Times, July 23, 1870

In his Confederate amnesty application Poindexter claimed had taken no active part in the rebellion against the United States but had removed with his steamboat to the Red River where he remained for the duration.[21] As of June 1870 Poindexter was master of a steamboat called Countess that traveled between Vicksburg and Skipwith's Landing.[22] Poindexter may have died in July or August 1870 as notices about settling the J.J. Poindexter estate begin appearing in New Orleans newspapers in August 1870.[23] John J. Poindexter was buried in Mississippi.[11]

Thomas B. Poindexter, with whom John J. Poindexter lived at the time of the 1850 census, had the highest net worth of the 34 men identified as a slave trader in the 1860 New Orleans census.[24][25][a]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ For more on Thomas B. Poindexter, see Judith Kelleher Schafer's Slavery, the civil law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana (1994), page 290.[26]

References[edit]

  1. ^ The National Archives At Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving At New Orleans, Louisiana, 1820-1902; NAI Number: 2824927; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; Record Group Number: 85 Ancestry.com. New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., Passenger Lists, 1813-1963 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006.
  2. ^ "Entry for John J Poindexter, 1840", United States Census, 1840 – via FamilySearch
  3. ^ "Married". The Mississippi Free Trader. 1840-05-16. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  4. ^ a b Kapp, Paul Hardin (2015-02-05). The Architecture of William Nichols: Building the Antebellum South in North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-62674-291-8.
  5. ^ "Poindexter & Thomas". The Weekly Mississippian. 1840-12-25. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  6. ^ "Newspaper notices of Mississippians 1820-1860. ---". HathiTrust. hdl:2027/nyp.33433083754592. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  7. ^ "Historical Sketch of Silas Brown Lodge". The Semi-Weekly Clarion. 1870-12-23. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  8. ^ "The Clarion-Ledger 02 Mar 1887, page 2". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  9. ^ The Official and statistical register of the state of Mississippi. 1908. hdl:2027/uc1.b4046982. Retrieved 2023-09-10 – via HathiTrust.
  10. ^ a b Mexican War veterans : a complete roster of the regular and volunteer troops in the war between the United States and Mexico, from 1846 to 1848 ; the volunteers ... hdl:2027/hvd.32044050520642. Retrieved 2023-09-10 – via HathiTrust.
  11. ^ a b Record Type, Date Range and Volume: Military grave registrations 1851-1901 (Box 11101) Source Information Mississippi, U.S., State Archives, Various Records, 1820-1951 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2021
  12. ^ "Entry for Thos B Poindexter and John Poindexter, 1850", United States Census, 1850 – via FamilySearch
  13. ^ "The Daily Delta 13 Oct 1852, page 2". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  14. ^ "Just received". The Times-Picayune. 1857-05-22. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  15. ^ "Twenty-Five Dollars Reward". The Times-Picayune. 1857-10-29. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  16. ^ a b "The Times-Picayune 30 Oct 1857, page Page 3". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  17. ^ "Entry for J J Poindexter and Martha Johnson, 1860", United States Census, 1860 – via FamilySearch
  18. ^ Name J J Pointdexter Residence Date 1860 Residence Place New Orleans Ward 3, Orleans, Louisiana, USA Number of Enslaved People 3 Role Slave Owner Female 40 Male 36 Female 5
  19. ^ Alexander, Charles (1914). Battles and Victories of Allen Allensworth ... Lieutenant-Colonel, Retired, U.S. Army. Sherman, French. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-598-48524-3 – via Google Books.
  20. ^ "Notice: 1,280 Acres of Rich Arkansas Land for Sale". The Daily True Democrat. 1861-03-13. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  21. ^ "John J Poindexter, 1865–1867", United States Civil War Confederate Applications for Pardons, 1865-1867 – via FamilySearch
  22. ^ "Countess for Skipwith's Landing". The Vicksburg Herald. 1870-06-10. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  23. ^ "Succession of J J Poindexter". New Orleans Republican. 1870-08-09. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  24. ^ "Thomas B. Poindexter - Male - 1804–1861 - K2XX-LDS". www.familysearch.org. Retrieved 2023-11-06.
  25. ^ Tansey, Richard (1982). "Bernard Kendig and the New Orleans Slave Trade". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 23 (2): 159–178. ISSN 0024-6816. JSTOR 4232168.
  26. ^ Schafer, Judith Kelleher (November 6, 1994). "Slavery, the civil law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana". Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press – via Internet Archive.
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