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Size | 3.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 2400 items) |
Abstract | J.F.H. Claiborne was a white lawyer, U.S. Representative, editor, planter, and historian of Mississippi and Louisiana. The collection has relatively few items pertaining to Claiborne's personal activities but includes letters he wrote while a law student in Wytheville, Va.; records of the 1842-1843 commission on Choctaw Indian claims; a few papers of Governor John Anthony Quitman; diary of Willis Herbert Claiborne as a Confederate officer at Vicksburg in April-July 1863; J.L. Power's notes on the Mississippi secession convention; materials collected by Claiborne in preparation of his history of Mississippi, among them biographical and autobiographical material on prominent leaders, including photographs of Colonel William F. Dowd; writings of Claiborne and others on a wide variety of contemporary and historical subjects; and a Mississippi pocket map. |
Creator | Claiborne, J. F. H. (John Francis Hamtramck), 1809-1884. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Suzanne Ruffing, July 1996
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Updated for digitization by Kathryn Michaelis, August 2010
Other revisions by: Nancy Kaiser, November 2018 and November 2020
This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.
Since August 2017, we have added ethnic identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine ethnic identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual’s preference for ethnicity to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@email.unc.edu.
Back to TopThe following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
John Francis Hamtramck Claiborne was a white lawyer, U.S. Representative, editor, planter, and historian of Mississippi and Louisiana. The son of General Ferdinand Lee Claiborne and nephew of William C. C. Claiborne, he was born near Natchez, Miss., on 24 April 1807. He studied law in Virginia, edited a pro-Jackson paper in Natchez, and served in Congress, 1835-1837. He moved back to Natchez to edit the Mississippi Free Trader, a Democratic paper. In 1842, Claiborne was appointed president of a commission to adjudicate the claims of the Choctaw Indians to several thousand acres of valuable land, which was also claimed by speculators. He moved to New Orleans in 1844 and edited the Jeffersonian in English and French, the Statesman in German and English, and the Louisiana Courier. In about 1853, Claiborne became a planter in Hancock County, Miss. He opposed secession and, after the war, while not an active politician, favored reconciliation and cooperation with the Republicans. He devoted the later part of his life to writing a history of Mississippi and published one volume. The manuscript of the second volume was burned shortly before his death on 17 May 1884. He also wrote Life and Times of Sam Dale and Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman .
[For further information see the Dictionary of American Biography and Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society , V and VII.]
Back to TopThe J.F.H. Claiborne Papers have relatively few items pertaining to Claiborne's personal activities but includes letters he wrote while a law student in Wytheville, Va.; records of the 1842-1843 commission on Choctaw Indian claims; a few papers of Governor John Anthony Quitman; diary of Willis Herbert Claiborne as a Confederate officer at Vicksburg in April-July 1863; J. L. Power's notes on the Mississippi secession convention; materials collected by Claiborne in preparation of his history of Mississippi, among them biographical and autobiographical material on prominent leaders, including photographs of Colonel William F. Dowd; writings of Claiborne and others on a wide variety of contemporary and historical subjects; and a Mississippi pocket map.
Back to TopArrangement: chronological.
Papers pertaining to Claiborne's own life and personal, business and political activity, including legal papers; papers collected by him in the course of his historical writing; and letters to him from a number of persons who were trying to help him gather information for his writings, especially for the history of Mississippi. These letters between Claiborne and friends discuss De Soto's expedition and conflicts with Indians, Indian relics, early battles, Confederate army officers, and several Mississippi counties, including Monroe and Adams counties, to be used in his history of Mississippi. There is also discussion of the poor credit the United States, and especially the southern states, had with Europe as a result of the mercantile revolution of 1837; political campaigns, 1838-1880; Mississippi law; the operation of Mississippi Manufacturing Co.; Civil War battles and campaigns; Jefferson Davis's trial for treason; the merits of President Grant; and a biography of Colonel Claiborne. Civil War items also relate to the right of secession; the 1st Mississippi Cavalry; the 24th Mississippi Regiment; the Sunflower guards; state sovereignty; slavery and secession; Brigadier General S. D. Lee's troops during the siege of Vicksburg; General Beauregard's family; and General Braxton's report of the Battle of Chickamauga.
Folder 1 |
1797-1839 |
Folder 2 |
1840-1859 |
Folder 3 |
1860-1875 |
Folder 4 |
1877 |
Folder 5 |
1878 January-July |
Folder 6 |
1878 August-December |
Folder 7 |
1879 January-May |
Folder 8 |
1879 June-September |
Folder 9 |
1879 October-December |
Folder 10 |
1880 January-June |
Folder 11 |
1880 July-August |
Folder 12 |
1880 September-December |
Folder 13 |
1881-1884 |
Folder 14 |
Undated |
Arrangement: alphabetical.
Biographical information compiled by Claiborne pertaining primarily to figures important in Mississippi during the Civil War.
Arrangement: topical.
Writings by Claiborne, primarily on historical subjects. There are papers from the Commission on Choctaw Indian Claims, 1842-1843, established by Congress to examine and adjudicate the claims of the Choctaw Indians under the 14th article of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit. Claiborne served as president of this board of commissioners. Folders 39-46 have been microfilmed. There are also two folders on the debts of the state of Mississippi due to bonds issued by the state for the Planters and Union Bank and sketches of M. G. P. Layman, Aaron Burr, William M. Gavin, Roger Barton, and Abraham Baldwin.
Arrangement: topical.
Newspaper clippings relating to Claiborne's writings and on political and other issues.
Besides his books, Claiborne also wrote a series of newspaper articles for Louisiana newspapers, 1848-1850, under the pseudonym "Nota Bene." These discussed current events, campaigns, public men, public questions, and politics such as the French Revolution and the Mexican War. The first folder of this series includes complete issues of the following newspapers, most of which have articles on Choctaw claims: The Signal (Gallatin, Miss.) 1843; Vicksburg Daily Sentinel 1843; Sentinel and Expositor (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1843; and The Daily Clarion(Meridian, Miss.) 1865.
Folder 66 |
Newspapers |
Folder 67 |
Clippings and other printed items by or about Claiborne or his writings |
Folder 68 |
Clippings about Quitman or Claiborne's book on him |
Folder 69 |
Clippings and other printed material on early Mississippi history, geography, Indians, and early settlers |
Folder 70 |
"Reminiscences of the Chickasaw Indians" |
Folder 71 |
Clippings on Mississippi history and politics, 1820-1840 |
Folder 72 |
Clippings and printed material on the Mexican War |
Folder 73 |
Clippings on slavery and secession |
Folder 74 |
Clippings on the Civil War |
Folder 75 |
Clippings of Post-Civil war reminiscences |
Folder 76 |
Clippings from the Reconstruction Period and later |
Folder 77 |
Miscellaneous Mississippi material |
Folder 78 |
Louisiana |
Folder 79 |
Articles by "Nota Bene" and reactions to columns |
Folder 80 |
Miscellaneous |
Arrangement: chronological.
Folder 81 |
Volume 1: 1794, 16 pagesBrief journal possibly of John Sevier or one of his sons, near Jonesboro, Tenn. |
Folder 82 |
Volume 2: 1794-1795, 40 pagesJournal of Ferdinand Leigh Claiborne while with the U.S. Army at Fort Wayne about events at the fort. |
Folder 83 |
Volume 3: 1825-1826, 160 pagesNotes on Blackstone's Commentaries kept by John F. H. Claiborne while studying law in Virginia with Alexander Smythe and notes on legal matters. |
Folder 84 |
Volume 4: 1826-1828, 60 pagesCopies of letters written by Claiborne in 1826 while in Virginia and clippings of editorial articles he wrote for the Natchez Statesman. The newspaper articles relate primarily to the Adams-Jackson presidential campaign. |
Folder 85 |
Volume 5: 1837-1838, 17 pagesFragmentary accounts and notes and record of shipping cotton. |
Folder 86 |
Volume 6: circa 1847, 100 pagesMiscellaneous notes on Claiborne's research. |
Folder 87 |
Volume 7: circa 1858, 30 pagesNotes on John A. Quitman and other politicians, with historical extracts. |
Folder 88 |
Volume 8: 1859, 18 pagesSamuel A. Cartwright's comments on John A. Quitman. |
Folder 89 |
Volume 9: 1863, 85 pages (including 10 pages looseleaf)Journal of W. H. Claiborne, son of John F. H. Claiborne, kept while serving in the Confederate Army in and near Vicksburg. |
Folder 90 |
Volume 10: Undated, 23 pagesHistorical notes on Mississippi and Roman history. |
Folder 91 |
Volume 11: Undated, 80 pagesExtracts from historical writings relating to the history of Mississippi, especially to Phineas Lyman and Aaron Burr. |
Reel M-151/1 |
Microfilm |