Mules
Mules were fixtures of rural life in South Carolina for two hundred years. Cotton and tobacco growers alike used mules, and the hearty animals plowed, harrowed, and hauled crops to market in every county in the state. The timber, naval stores, and phosphate industries employed mules as well. Among rural folk, ownership of mules placed landless farmers in a position to negotiate more favorable tenancy arrangements with landlords
A mule is a hybrid animal that results from breeding a male donkey with a female horse. Although mules have gender (males are called “horse mules” and females “mare mules”), they are sterile and cannot reproduce. For centuries mules have been prized for their intelligence and capacity for work. Farmers typically preferred mules to horses because mules usually lived longer, learned faster, and were better tempered than horses.
Mules were fixtures of rural life in South Carolina for two hundred years. Cotton and tobacco growers alike used mules, and the hearty animals plowed, harrowed, and hauled crops to market in every county in the state. The timber, naval stores, and phosphate industries employed mules as well. Among rural folk, ownership of mules placed landless farmers in a position to negotiate more favorable tenancy arrangements with landlords. An active market in mules existed throughout the year, and any serviceable mule was worth hard cash. Thus, mules were commonly pledged as collateral against loans and advances from banks and merchants.
South Carolina’s mule population peaked in the 1920s at around 210,000. As nearly all were imported from Missouri or Texas, the mule trade drained millions of dollars annually from South Carolina farmers. The state’s commissioner of agriculture prudently encouraged farmers to raise their own mules, but few heeded his advice.
By the 1940s tractors and trucks were replacing mules on South Carolina farms. The pace of change quickened after World War II, and by the early 1950s mules were the exception rather than the rule. Here and there a beloved animal lived out his days in semi-retirement tilling a vegetable garden as plowmen relied more and more on diesel power.
Ellenberg, George B. “African Americans, Mules, and the Southern Mindscape, 1850–1950.” Agricultural History 72 (spring 1988): 381–98.
Kirby, Jack Temple. Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920–1960. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
Prince, Eldred E., and Robert R. Simpson. Long Green: The Rise and Fall of Tobacco in South Carolina. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000.
