The Gaulden and Richardson Migration to Mississippi
- Catherine Gauldin
- May 28
- 13 min read
The Gaulden and Richardson families left Sumter District, South Carolina in 1808, joining the early stream of settlers moving west into the Mississippi Territory as new lands opened for cotton cultivation. Led by Francis Richardson’s sons, the migration included not only the younger men but also Martha Gaulden Richardson, Francis’s widow, who made the difficult overland journey with her children and kin. Traveling along the established migration corridors through Georgia and Alabama, the extended family arrived in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, where they established new farms and began the next chapter of their lives. This 1808 movement became the foundation for the Richardson line in Mississippi and later Louisiana, linking the Gaulden and Richardson families across states and generations.
The only Gaulden documented in the 1808 Richardson migration is Martha Gaulden Richardson, however multiple Gaulden households lived in the same South Carolina departure zone, were closely related to Martha, and migrated west along the same corridor within the same generation. While no evidence places them in the 1808 caravan, the broader Gaulden family clearly participated in the same migration stream.
There is no surviving journal, letter, land claim, church record, family Bible, or Mississippi territorial document naming any Gaulden other than Martha in the 1808 Richardson migration from Sumter District to Mississippi, however strong circumstantial evidence points to a broader Gaulden–Richardson migration cluster. Multiple Gaulden households—those of James Gaulden (b. 1761), Thomas Gaulden, and the William Gaulden/Gauldin families—lived in the same departure zone in Sumter District (1), Camden District (2), and the High Hills of Santee (3), the exact region from which the Richardsons left. These families were kin to Martha and part of the same community network. (4)
Although not documented in the 1808 caravan, several Gaulden households migrated west between 1805 and 1820 (4), appearing in Georgia (Wilkes, Hancock, Washington Counties) by 1810–1820, in Alabama by the 1820s (5), and in Mississippi by the 1820s–1830s. This movement follows the same South Carolina → Georgia → Alabama → Mississippi (6) migration corridor used by the Richardsons. Historical patterns show that families from the same South Carolina neighborhoods typically migrated in waves (7), making the 1808 Richardson move led by John Gaulden Richardson likely the first wave, with Gaulden relatives following later. What the records do not show is any evidence of a Gaulden traveling in the 1808 party or any large Gaulden overland group. The parties traveling together were small, kin‑based, and incremental. It was not a mass exodus.
This is what Francis DuBose Richardson wrote about the trip in his 1895 Memoirs:
“The last Monday in November 1808 was a day long to be remembered in the old Richardson neighborhood, as family after family fell into line, each with wagon, teams and equipment. Negro boys generally rode mules, while the women and children were stowed away in the wagons. A long line of family carriages followed in the rear and completed this army of emigrants numbering over a thousand grown persons besides children. By common concurrence, it had been decided that John G. Richardson should be chief in command of the moving party and as their route led through the Indian Nation, it was necessary for safety to keep in as compact a body as possible. A select number of picked men was arranged as avant-couriers to be kept a day's journey in advance to select camping grounds, arrange ferriage, inspect bridges and detect as far as possible any lurking danger. Their young Moses with his splendid horse and equipment ready for any emergency was everywhere along the line, looking to the wants and comforts of all. With every day came its annoyances and accidents, enough to fill a volume, but he showed himself equal to every emergency and no doubt deserved more laurels than many a General has received for conducting and advancing or retreating army.
In January 1810 the locality of their future home was reached and permanent tents were struck, stock enclosures made and for a time most of the families went into winter quarters, which however proved to be very mild and open. Land sharks and agents were soon thick among them, each offering for a trifle to show 'the richest land that ever a crow flew over", so that before a month had passed the great company were mostly scattered, some never to meet again. The usual results followed, of conflicting claims, trespass and law-suits, in which George Poindexter and other legal luminaries laid the foundations of their fame and fortunes, the location of our ancestors has been before given and we have now but to follow them to it. J.G. Richardson found his new home, which he had left under contact, well under way, but not completed so that the newly married couple had to pass some of their time in the old log cabin. Here life began with them in earnest, with all its cares and responsibilities common to human existence. The amount of property brought in marriage was about equal and consisted mostly of slaves, of which there were about 30 all told. The improvements on the plantation were pushed rapidly forward, first the completion of the dwelling sacred in memory of all the children but the last. There were the negro cabins, cottages on the hillside, at the head of the long avenue leading to the dwelling from the public road. But opening land and extending the field was the main work of the plantation hands, so that by May a fair crop, for the force, was put in.”
The settlement of Mississippi
Mississippi settlement in the early 1800s followed a well‑documented pattern shaped by land availability, federal policy, Native American removal, and the rise of cotton. By the time Mississippi became a state in 1817, nearly all non‑Native residents lived in the five southwestern counties of the old Natchez District — Adams, Amite, Franklin, Jefferson, and Wilkinson. This region formed the earliest core of European settlement and served as the primary entry point for incoming families from the Carolinas and Georgia. It is within this established migration stream that the Richardson and Gaulden families arrived in 1808, settling in Wilkinson County exactly in line with these broader historical patterns.
Mississippi’s growth in the early 1800s was driven by a series of federal treaties that transferred Native American land to the United States, opening millions of acres for white settlement. Key agreements included the Choctaw treaties (1801–1830) (9) and Chickasaw treaties (1816–1832) (10), especially the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830), which forced the Choctaw westward, and the Treaty of Pontotoc (1832), which removed the Chickasaw. These land cessions created two distinct settlement zones: the western alluvial region, which attracted wealthy planters, large cotton estates, and high enslaved populations, and the eastern pine‑woods uplands, where small farmers settled on cheaper land with far fewer enslaved people. This pattern explains why planter families like the Richardsons gravitated toward the fertile western counties. (8)
Mississippi’s population shifted dramatically after 1830 as newly opened lands drew settlers northward, reducing the Natchez District’s share of the state’s population from over half in 1820 to less than ten percent by 1860. This movement was fueled by two major “flush times” land booms (1816–1819 and 1833–1837), when high cotton prices and federal land sales triggered rapid in‑migration followed by financial collapse. Most white settlers arrived not in large caravans but in small, kin‑based groups from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia, matching the incremental migration of families like the Richardsons rather than any mass movement of 1,000+ people from Sumter District. The only large‑scale population transfers of thousands were part of the Second Middle Passage—the forced migration of enslaved African Americans from the Upper South into Mississippi’s expanding cotton economy.
The South Carolina to Mississippi Migration map
Families such as the Richardsons and Gauldens left the Sumter District, Camden District, and the High Hills of Santee—a region that supplied many early migrants to the Mississippi Territory—and traveled west along the established overland corridors of the Fall Line Road, Milledgeville Road, Federal Road, and Natchez Trace feeder routes between 1800 and 1815. These routes carried thousands of settlers into the Natchez District, where early Mississippi settlement centered in Wilkinson, Jefferson, and Adams Counties, the same area where the Richardson family cluster arrived between 1808 and 1812. Their movement fits precisely within the documented migration pathways from South Carolina into the southwestern frontier during the early territorial period.
The map below includes these points:
Departure points in South Carolina
The actual early‑1800s roads used
The Richardson/Gaulden path
Arrival points in Mississippi
The Second Middle Passage at Bayside
The enslaved community at Bayside Plantation was created and shaped by the Second Middle Passage (12), the massive internal slave trade that moved over one million enslaved people from Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Upper Georgia into the Deep South between 1800 and 1860. Most adults recorded in the Bayside journals (1846–1866) were not Louisiana‑born but had been transported through the interstate trade via coastal shipping to New Orleans, river routes down the Mississippi, or overland coffles that marched hundreds of miles across the South. Sugar plantations like Bayside required large, skilled labor forces that Louisiana’s natural population growth could not supply, leading planters such as Francis DuBose Richardson to purchase enslaved people from the Upper South (13)—producing the fragmented family structures, naming patterns, and rapid population growth visible in the Bayside records. The names preserved in the journals reflect Upper South traditions rather than Creole Louisiana patterns, marking Bayside’s enslaved community as a direct product of forced migration.
The men, women, and children recorded in the Bayside journals (14) between 1846 and 1866—people such as Abram, Adeline, Celia, Jerry, Milly, Sandy, Sophia, Isaac, Jacob, and Polly—did not originate in Louisiana. Their names (14), overwhelmingly drawn from Upper South naming traditions, reflect origins in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Upper Georgia, the very states most heavily drained by the domestic slave trade. They likely arrived in Louisiana through the same routes that brought thousands of others to the sugar parishes: coastal slave ships entering New Orleans (14) from Norfolk and Baltimore, river shipments down the Mississippi organized by major traders, and overland coffles that marched chained groups hundreds of miles across the South.
Once at Bayside, these individuals formed a labor force essential to the plantation’s sugar operations—field gangs cutting and hauling cane, skilled workers in the sugarhouse, and women who labored both in the fields and in domestic roles. The records show the deep human cost of the slave trade: adults listed without spouses, children without parents, and fragmented kinship clusters that reveal families torn apart before arrival. Yet within these constraints, the enslaved people at Bayside built community, preserved names, and carried forward cultural traditions rooted in the Upper South. Their presence on the Bayou Teche stands as a direct testament to the forced migration that shaped Louisiana’s sugar economy and the lived experiences of those whose labor sustained it.
Migration Routes of the Enslaved Community at Bayside Plantation
(How enslaved people were transported from the Upper South to the Bayou Teche)
The enslaved men, women, and children who appear in the Bayside Plantation journals did not originate in Louisiana. Their presence in Iberia Parish was the result of the Second Middle Passage, the massive internal slave trade that moved more than one million enslaved people from the Upper South—especially Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Upper Georgia—into the Deep South between 1800 and 1860. Three major routes carried enslaved people into Louisiana’s sugar parishes, each leaving a distinct imprint on the lives of those who eventually labored at Bayside.
1. Coastal Shipping Routes - Enslaved people were transported by ship from Norfolk, Richmond, and Baltimore to New Orleans, the largest slave market in the United States after 1830. Ships often carried 100–200 enslaved people at a time, tightly confined in conditions similar to the earlier transatlantic trade. From New Orleans, traders sold enslaved people to sugar planters along the Bayou Teche, including the Richardsons.
2. Mississippi River Routes - Large slave‑trading firms—most famously Franklin & Armfield—shipped enslaved people down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on flatboats and steamboats. These shipments often contained 50–150 enslaved people, chained or confined below deck. Upon arrival in New Orleans or Natchez, traders sold them to Louisiana sugar planters who needed large, skilled labor forces.
3. Overland Coffle Routes - Some enslaved people endured forced marches of 300–600 miles, chained together in “coffles” that traveled from the Carolinas through Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi before reaching Louisiana. Coffles could include 50–100 people, guarded by armed traders. Any adult at Bayside who was already grown by the 1840s may have survived one of these marches.
Louisiana’s sugar economy required large, stable, and skilled labor forces, and natural population growth could not meet demand. Planters like Francis DuBose Richardson purchased enslaved people from these interstate routes to build the labor force that made Bayside profitable.
Bayside Plantation: Enslaved Biographical List (c. 1846–1866)
Francis DuBose Richardson stated in his Memoirs that there were thirty slaves at Bayside, and this list is just a partial number, with some brief biographical information (not proven):
Abram
Role: Likely field laborer
Notes: Appears in 1849 list; common Chesapeake name
Probable origin: Virginia or Maryland
Sources: Bayside 1849 list; Louisiana Slave Database; Johnson, Soul by Soul
Adeline
Role: Domestic or field labor
Notes: Name strongly associated with enslaved women sold from NC/VA
Probable origin: North Carolina
Sources: Bayside list; West, Enslaved Women in America
Celia
Role: Field labor
Notes: Very common among women trafficked through New Orleans
Probable origin: Virginia
Sources: Bayside list; Johnson, Soul by Soul
Jerry
Role: Field hand
Notes: Anglicized diminutive typical of Upper South enslaved men
Probable origin: Virginia or Upper Georgia
Sources: Bayside list; Louisiana Slave Database
Milly
Role: Field labor
Notes: One of the most common names in interstate slave sales
Probable origin: Maryland or Virginia
Sources: Bayside list; Deyle, Carry Me Back
Sandy
Role: Field labor
Notes: Frequently appears in Chesapeake slave‑trade manifests
Probable origin: Maryland
Sources: Bayside list; Rothman, The Ledger and the Chain
Sophia
Role: Domestic or skilled labor
Notes: Biblical name common in Upper South communities
Probable origin: Virginia or North Carolina
Sources: Bayside list; Louisiana Slave Database
Ben
Role: Field hand
Notes: One of the most common male names in the domestic trade
Probable origin: Virginia
Sources: Bayside list; Johnson, Soul by Soul
Lewis
Role: Field labor
Notes: Anglicized name typical of Chesapeake enslaved men
Probable origin: Virginia or Maryland
Sources: Bayside list; Louisiana Slave Database
Maria
Role: Domestic or field labor
Notes: Biblical name common among enslaved women from the Carolinas
Probable origin: South Carolina
Sources: Bayside list; West, Enslaved Women in America
Martha
Role: Domestic labor
Notes: Strong Upper South naming pattern; rare in Creole Louisiana
Probable origin: North Carolina or Virginia
Sources: Bayside list; Louisiana Slave Database
Isaac
Role: Skilled or field labor
Notes: Biblical name frequently appearing in VA/MD sale records
Probable origin: Virginia
Sources: Bayside list; Deyle, Carry Me Back
Jacob
Role: Field labor
Notes: Upper South biblical name; uncommon in Creole Louisiana
Probable origin: Maryland or Virginia
Sources: Bayside list; Louisiana Slave Database
Polly
Role: Domestic labor
Notes: Diminutive of Mary; extremely common in Carolinas slave sales
Probable origin: South Carolina
Sources: Bayside list; West, Enslaved Women in America
Robert
Role: Field labor
Notes: Anglicized name typical of Chesapeake enslaved men
Probable origin: Virginia
Sources: Bayside list; Rothman, The Ledger and the Chain
Leah
Role: Domestic labor
Notes: She was the only person who was brought over in the group of thirty from Africa who is called out by name in the Richardson Memoirs. This is what Francis D. Richardson wrote about her: “These thirty all turned out well, and became good and valuable servants, long lived, most of them were handed down by inheritance to the third generation. One of the last survivors was a woman, Leah, who became the property of the writer, was long a consistent, pious member of the Methodist Church, she died in the Parish of Iberia, La. in 1877, thus allowing her to be twenty on arriving in America, would make her one hundred and seven years old at the time of her death.”
Caesar and Pena
Caesar and Pena appear briefly in The Memoirs of Francis DuBose Richardson, but their inclusion is significant because they are two of the very few enslaved people Richardson names, offering a rare glimpse into the enslaved community that lived with the family in South Carolina before the 1808 migration.
Caesar is described as a long‑serving, trusted enslaved man who assisted the Richardson household during their years in Sumter District, the High Hills of Santee, and Camden District. Richardson portrays him in the paternalistic tone typical of planter memoirs, emphasizing loyalty and service. The memoir does not indicate whether Caesar migrated with the family to Mississippi; he is mentioned only in the South Carolina context.
Pena—an enslaved man, despite the unusual name—is also associated with the Richardson household in South Carolina. His name appears in a domestic and everyday context, suggesting he worked closely within the household. Because “Pena” is not a common Lowcountry enslaved name, it may represent a phonetic spelling or a name of African or Creole origin. Like Caesar, Pena is portrayed as a familiar presence, but the memoir does not state whether he traveled west in 1808.
Together, Caesar and Pena represent the South Carolina enslaved community that predated the later Bayside Plantation community. Their presence shows that the Richardsons relied on enslaved labor long before moving to Mississippi, and it underscores that the enslaved people later found at Bayside were not the same individuals—those were brought to Louisiana through the Second Middle Passage rather than through direct migration from South Carolina.
Conclusion
The 1808 migration of the Richardson family from Sumter District and the High Hills of Santee to the Mississippi Territory marked a turning point not only for the Richardsons and their Gaulden kin, but also for the enslaved people whose forced labor sustained both households. Although only Martha Gaulden Richardson is documented as traveling with the family, the broader Gaulden and Richardson networks moved west in overlapping waves, following the same South Carolina → Georgia → Alabama → Mississippi migration corridor that reshaped the early Deep South.
This journey was not undertaken by the white family alone. The Richardsons—like all planters of their class—brought enslaved people with them, uprooting men, women, and children from the communities they had known in South Carolina. Their movement westward was part of the larger pattern of coerced migration that defined the early American frontier. The enslaved people who traveled with the Richardsons formed the foundation of the labor force that allowed the family to establish themselves in Mississippi, just as later generations of enslaved people—brought through the Second Middle Passage—would build and sustain Bayside Plantation in Louisiana.
In this way, the Gaulden–Richardson migration story is inseparable from the story of the enslaved. Their forced westward movement, their labor, and their survival shaped the family’s fortunes as surely as the decisions of the Richardsons themselves. Any account of the 1808 migration must therefore recognize that the journey was a shared one—though not by choice—and its legacy belongs to all who traveled it.
Works Cited
1. South Carolina State Archives. Sumter District Tax Lists, 1790–1810 : Columbia, SC: SCDAH, South Carolina Department of Archives and History. microfilm collection.
2. South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Columbia, SC: SCDAH : microfilm collection, Camden District Tax Lists, 1790–1810.
3. South Carolina Historical Society. Charleston, SC : SCHS Manuscript Collection, High Hills of Santee Family Papers.
4. Prince Edward County Courthouse. Land and Probate Records, 1750–1820. manuscript volumes : s.n., Prince Edward County, Virginia: County Clerk’s Office.
5. United States Census Bureau. Washington, DC : National Archives Microfilm, Fourth Census of the United States, 1810.
6. United States Census Bureau. Washington, DC : National Archives Microfilm, Fifth Census of the United States, 1820.
7. McCurry, Stephanie. Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country. New York : Oxford University Press, 1995.
8. Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.
9. Mississippi Encyclopedia. Choctaw,” “Chickasaw,” “Dancing Rabbit Creek,” “Pontotoc Creek.
10. Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Jackson, MS : Mississippi Department of Archives & History, n.d., Early Statehood and Indian Removal.
11. Klein, Rachel N. The Unification of a Slave State: The Rise of the Planter Class in the South Carolina Backcountry, 1760–1808. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
12. Berlin, Ira. Slaves Without Masterws: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South. New York : The New Press, 1974.
13. Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul; Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1999.
14. Bayside Plantation Journals, 1846-1866. s.l. : University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Special Collections. 1849 "Shoes and Blankets" List (Bayside Plantation Papers).
15. West, Emily. Enslaved Women in America: From Colonial Times to Emancipation. Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
16. Follett, Richard. The Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana's Cane World, 1820-1860. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2005.
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