Cotton Was King - Madison County Alabama: Alabama Plantation Series

Rickey Butch Walker is literally speaking, an encyclopedia of North Alabama regional Indian history and the period of first pioneer settlement that followed. He has authored several excellent fact filled books in these fields of expertise. However, it is his passionate and heartfelt dissertation about the struggles and obstacles that confronted the disenfranchised Indian people and early pioneers that sets him apart as a poignant writer.

The book is formatted using a timeline that begins with the European explorers and first Indian people in Madison County and North Alabama. The majority of the book focuses on the early cotton planters and King Cotton period in Madison County history than ended with the American Civil War.

Although the book is the last in the author's series of books about the King Cotton counties in North Alabama, it might be the most important book in the collection. As the author explains in this book, Madison County, established in 1809, was the earliest county in Alabama and North Alabama. Also, it was the first county to grow cotton as a cash crop that became the white gold” economic currency and base for all North AL. As the book so interestingly describes, downtown Huntsville thrived with cotton merchants. Bales of cotton, piled high on wagons, were auctioned off around the same Madison County courthouse square that exists today. From Madison County in Northeast AL to Franklin County in Northwest AL, for some 140 miles, contiguous cotton plantations sprang up and spread like wildfires along the Great Bend of the Tennessee River.

I particularly enjoyed reading about the many Madison County cotton barons in the book. Butch Walker meticulously researched their military histories, genealogies, and stories of success, along with vintage photographs of family members and palatial homes. The Madison County cotton land stretched from Hazelgreen to Ditto Landing. Most of the planters are Madison County's founding fathers, some of whom lie at rest in Maple Hill Cemetery. A few of their antebellum homes are still standing in stark contrast to Madison County some 215 years later.

This book would appeal to a varied audience of readers including the many newcomers and those with Madison County birthrights that want to know more about the County's history. It's a must read for historians, genealogists, teachers, professors, and Indian history buffs. I learned a lot from this book, and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I award the book a five-star rating.