US Politics on Sidechat | People don’t know what a real southern rebel looks like. Newton Knight deserted from the confederate army and led a Unionist revolt in Jones County, Mississippi. They defended farms from the confederates and redistributed seized corn supplies.

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US Politics 21w

People don’t know what a real southern rebel looks like. Newton Knight deserted from the confederate army and led a Unionist revolt in Jones County, Mississippi. They defended farms from the confederates and redistributed seized corn supplies.

8 upvotes, 3 comments. Sidechat image post by Anonymous in US Politics. "People don’t know what a real southern rebel looks like. Newton Knight deserted from the confederate army and led a Unionist revolt in Jones County, Mississippi. They defended farms from the confederates and redistributed seized corn supplies."

Anonymous 21w

He and his fellow deserters brought the Free State of Jones fully out of confederate control. They were small scale farmers. They had no use for a war in the name of slavery that got them killed and their farms depleted. He functioned like a southern Robin Hood, capturing confederate supplies taxed from the local area and giving them back to the people. When needed, they hid in the swamps, with food supplied by enslaved people and local women.

Anonymous

OP 21w

After the civil war ended, Jones married Rachel Knight, a woman formerly enslaved by his grandfather. He served as a deputy U.S. Marshall under the reconstructionist government. After the overthrow of the reconstruction government, he retired from politics. He died in 1922 at the age of 92 and was buried next to Rachel, in defiance of Mississippi law. His epitaph read “He lived for others.”

Anonymous

OP 21w

But you know what I find deeply shameful? He and his soldiers aren’t acknowledged by Jones County today. Instead Jones County glorifies the confederate loyalists in a pair of pro-confederate monuments. Because today the community glorifies those who fought for slavery, and not those who had the bravery to rebel against it.