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Politics, Conflict, and the Illicit Liquor Trade in White County, Georgia and Pickens County, South Carol

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Politics, Conflict, and the Illicit Liquor Trade in White County, Georgia and Pickens County, South Carol ONE TRADE, TWO WORLDS: POLITICS, CONFLICT, AND THE ILLICIT LIQUOR TRADE IN WHITE COUNTY, GEORGIA AND PICKENS COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1894-1895 by MICHAEL JOSEPH BUSEMAN (Under the Direction of John Inscoe) ABSTRACT This study investigates the moonshine experience in White County, Georgia and Pickens County, South Carolina. This thesis is a comparative study of the illicit liquor trade in both counties during the last decade of the 19th century. Considerations of economic and political context are included for each county and for the time period. Once a context is provided, considerations of prohibitionist movements in each county are presented and important contrasts are drawn between state and federal efforts to regulate and eliminate the illicit liquor trade. Finally, a discussion is undertaken of the Appalachian moonshiner's identity and their experiences in state and federal courts. This thesis concludes that the moonshine experience in South Carolina was different from Georgia because of the Dispensary System, moonshiners' identities closely followed the stereotype of the white farmer, and local-federal conflict developed as state and local authorities were more interested in eliminating the trade than their revenue-hungry federal counterparts. INDEX WORDS: Georgia, South Carolina, White County, Pickens County, Moonshine, Illicit Liquor, South Carolina Dispensary System, Ben Tillman, The Panic of 1893 ONE TRADE, TWO WORLDS: POLITICS, CONFLICT, AND THE ILLICIT LIQUOR TRADE IN WHITE COUNTY, GEORGIA AND PICKENS COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1894-1895 by MICHAEL JOSEPH BUSEMAN B.S., The University of Miami, 1999 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2002 © 2002 Michael Joseph Buseman All Rights Reserved ONE TRADE, TWO WORLDS: POLITICS, CONFLICT, AND THE ILLICIT LIQUOR TRADE IN WHITE COUNTY, GEORGIA AND PICKENS COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1894-1895 by MICHAEL JOSEPH BUSEMAN Major Professor: John Inscoe Committee: James Cobb Kathleen Clark Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2002 iv DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my stepfather Harry Young. More than anyone else, he taught me the value of hard work and sheer determination. Rest in peace, Harry. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are so many people I need to thank for making this thesis happen. I would like to start by thanking my mother for always pushing me and expecting nothing but the best out of her son. Thanks also to my entire family-you are an inspiration. Thanks to my thesis advisor Dr. Inscoe for always finding time to advise and revise despite his busy schedule. Thanks also go out to Dr. Clark and Dr. Cobb for serving on my committee and for coming up to Athens and accommodating my schedule. I also want to thank my University of Miami history professors and advisors Dr. Johnson, Baptist, and Bachin- you sparked my interest in history and taught me how to write like a historian. Special thanks go out to all of my friends who lent me a helping hand, let me stay with them on research trips, listened to my panicked phone calls, and helped keep my head up; thanks John Paul, James, Drew, Bob, and Eric. Finally, I want to thank the librarians and research assistants at all of the libraries, collections, and archives I visited. Without all of you, none of this would be possible. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................1 2 SETTING THE STAGE ....................................................................................9 White County ................................................................................................9 Pickens County............................................................................................12 National Sentiments ....................................................................................16 White County/Georgia Sentiments..............................................................17 Pickens County/South Carolina Sentiments................................................20 3 CONFLICT......................................................................................................29 Local-Federal Conflict in White County.....................................................30 Local-State Conflict in Pickens County ......................................................32 4 PROSECUTING THE TRADE.......................................................................42 Federal Regulation and Prosecution............................................................44 State Regulation and Prosecution................................................................50 5 EPILOGUE......................................................................................................57 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................60 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION For the last three decades, Appalachian historians have been fighting an ongoing battle against the social and historical misrepresentation of Appalachia. In his 1990 consideration of Appalachian identity entitled The Invention of Appalachia, Allen Batteau argues that scholars and fictional writers in the late nineteenth century focused on the "otherness" of the region by pointing to the backwardness and violence of activities like moonshining.1 Unfortunately, later scholars did little to rectify the prevailing vision of Appalachia as isolated, backward, and monolithic. By looking at the region in oversimplified and condescending terms, mainstream America felt better about the profound and often negative economic and environmental changes it was making in Appalachia. According to Batteau, prevailing American movements and beliefs shaped the way in which scholars presented the mountain South.2 It was not until the 1970s that historians began to approach Appalachia with a more discerning eye. For example, Henry Shapiro outlined and critiqued historical attempts at defining Appalachia in his 1978 work Appalachia on Our Mind. As Appalachian historians came to terms with Appalachia's historical legacy, some scholars applied the growing field of microhistory to specific areas of the mountain South. In his 1988 work, Cade's Cove: the Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community, 1818-1933, Durwood Dunn investigated the unique historical legacy of one such town in western North Carolina. In addition, Altina Waller investigates the social impact of the 2 famous Hatfield-McCoy feud on several counties in Kentucky and West Virginia in her 1988 study entitled Feud: Hatfields, McCoys and Social Change in Appalachia: 1860- 1900. Coupled with this burgeoning knowledge of the complexity and richness of Appalachian history was a more thorough understanding of specific aspects of its culture, including moonshining. Over the last three decades of the twentieth century, historians confronted traditional conceptions of the Appalachian moonshiner. Instead of presenting illicit liquor traders as isolated, violent, and ignorant characters, scholars began to see a complex moonshining subculture operating not in isolation from and oblivious to the rest of the world, but in concert with the political and social sentiments of the time. The scholarship of Jess Carr and Joseph Dabney in the 1970s bridged the gap between national movements and processes and the illicit liquor trade in the mountain South. Both Carr's Second Oldest Profession and Dabney's Mountain Spirits investigated the increase in moonshine activity during the late nineteenth century and argued that outside movements and conditions rather than deeply ingrained cultural defects encouraged the Appalachian moonshine trade. Revenuers and Moonshiners: Enforcing Federal Liquor Law in the Mountain South, 1865-1900, a 1991 study by Wilbur Miller, provides the most thorough investigation both of mountain moonshine and governmental efforts at curbing the trade. Miller's book encompasses every part of the mountain South and tackles a variety of social, economic, and political processes at work in the manufacture of and fight over illicit liquor. He outlines the temperance movement and its effects on moonshine in specific parts of Appalachia. In addition, Miller considers the effects of political conflict and economic upheaval on the illicit liquor trade. 3 These fairly recent investigations of the moonshine trade add to our appreciation of this important southern economic endeavor. Through the work of scholars like Carr, Dabney, and Miller, we have answers to some of the basic questions concerning the illicit liquor trade. We know where the trade flourished, how moonshine was made, and even what economic forces encouraged the manufacture of illicit liquor. However, the study of moonshine lags behind other recent investigations of Appalachian culture in its microhistorical focus. Works like Revenuers and Moonshiners, while thorough in their investigations of national and even state movements and events affecting moonshine, fail to consider adequately how these movements affected individual communities. They consider their subjects from the outside looking in rather than from the inside looking out. By looking at the trade from relatively broad and detached perspectives,
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