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The Grand "Nigger Experiment" Exploded.
— As most of our readers are aware, a little pack of Abolition speculators reached this place some month or six weeks since, with the intention of testing, on an extensive scale, the adaptability of this country to the culture of cotton. They rented a couple of hundred acres of land in the Mississippi Bottom, and brought on wagons, plows, horses and several hundred bushels of cotton seed, showing their intention of going into the business in earnest. It soon became evident that they intended to work the place with negroes who had been enticed away or stolen from the plantations of the South. They were warned that such a course would be in violation of the laws of the State and repugnant to the feelings of the people. They declared that the negroes should be brought here, and that they had promise of sufficient military force from Cairo and Cape Girardeau, to protect them, and bid defiance to the laws of the State, which they regarded as in direct opposition to the sentiments expressed in the President's Proclamation! Accordingly the negroes, sixty-two in number, were brought up the river and landed near Hamburg. The Abolitionists chuckled at the apparent inability of the people to prevent them from carrying out their schemes, and rested in the confident belief that they had succeeded in founding a grand free nigger colony, which would, in a few years, convert lower Egypt into an African paradise. The people also rested in a "confident belief" — which was that the plan should not be carried out, contrary to the letter of the law and against their plainest interests and expressed wishes. It was intended to let the law take its course, and if necessary, the people of the entire county would turn out and aid in its enforcement. The interlopers supposed they could overawe the people and violate our laws at pleasure, but the spirit of determination which they everywhere met in our citizens, soon convinced them that they had sadly mistaken the material they were dealing with. The darkeys were afraid to go into the field to work, the overseers formed a very unfavorable [unknown] in opinion of the country and people that would not embrace free-niggerism — and the proprietor (J. B. Fenton) began to think the cotton business a humbug, anyhow! The clan finally decided to abandon the experiment, and on Sunday the negroes were told to pack up their worldly effects and be in readiness to take the first boat for below. Boat after boat refused to receive or have anything to do with them, and it was not until Wednesday that they succeeded in securing passage. With the wishes of our people that they may soon revert to that condition which by nature is much better suited to their capacity and disposition than freedom in the North, they bade adieu to our inhospitable shores and started for Island Number Ten. The cotton seed of the "firm" was taken possession of by parties to whom they were indebted, and the greater portion of their remaining property will be absorbed in liquidating indebtedness they have contracted in this section. Though we never had any doubt as to the final result of this movement, we yet congratulate our people that it has terminated so agreeably to their feelings with so little trouble.