The Free State of Jones Movie/Book

Was the movie "The Free State of Jones" movie historically accurate ?


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General Lee

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I saw the movie I forget how long ago and it looked cool and all but then I read the book and it really changed how I saw the movie and over time the movie had some serious inconsistencies like Rachel Knight the slave women who pops up as some doctor or something the movie was really a slave Newton Knight inherited from his grandmother who I have no doubt he quickly free but correct me if I'm wrong. Also he has a son who dies in the war but I don't recall him having a kid who died in the field and he had multiple children to my knowledge. The movie is a bunch of hollywood myth with little truth but a great story any how, but the book was very helpful.
 

diane

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The movie was pretty good as such movies go, not bad. But, it did put Newt Knight in a lot prettier light than he really deserved! Very good story, the Free State of Jones, and Knight was caught in the damned if you do, damned if you don't category. But he did set up as nothing more noble than a war lord!
 

5fish

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The NY Times in 1864...


The Natchez (Miss.) Courier, of the 12th inst., gives an account of a curious "Republic" which was organized in Jones County, Miss., a year or so ago. It appears that numbers of rebel deserters having congregated in the swamps of that county, determined to form a government for themselves. A rebel Col. MOWRY, with a considerable force, was sent to disband them, and it was supposed had succeeded, but it now appears that the malcontents offered a desperate resistance, dispersing the assailants, killing and wounding and capturing a considerable proportion of them. At last accounts the "Republic" was still in the enjoyment of health and strength, and determined to resist to the death the encroachments of the Confederacy. It is not likely, however, that the "Republic" will long survive. The Confederates, unless speedily driven from Mississippi, will absorb it, and if they do not, another authority will.
 

Union8448

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The movie is not historically accurate about Newton Knight and Jones County, but it is historically accurate about how much resistance there was to the Confederate government. Families too poor to own slaves as help or as house servants figured out quickly that they had very little stake in the outcome of the Civil War. William Freehling wrote that there were US regiments formed in every Confederate state other than So. Carolina. And the color line might have been a lot softer than politicians in MS wanted it to be. That fictional part of the cinematic version might be truthful. The movie itself has many nature shots of how wild the MS countryside remained.
Newton Knight was a very big man. I always thought it likely that he had indigenous ancestors and that was the source of his physical prowess.
s
 

5fish

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What happened in Jones County was the Plantation owners and Olicarhics in the South's greatest fear. The poor whites and the landless whites joined forces with local slaves to demand a fair share. It seems Knight was able to unite the poor whites and slaves into a resistance movement.
 

5fish

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I found this little tidbit about other areas in the South that stayed with the Union... It county has its own story to tell...


Scott County, Tennessee
Winston County, Alabama
Jones County, Mississippi
Searcy County, Arkansas
Texas Hill Country
 
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