Formerly enslaved people once owned by the brother of the Confederate president were part of the most successful agricultural and social experiment in the Reconstruction era.

Freedmen at Davis Bend, once owned by Jefferson Davis’ older brother Joseph, managed themselves on successful farms as early as 1862, Vicksburg National Military park ranger Dr. Davis Slay told a group gathered Monday at the Shirley House.

“It was almost like one of those utopian colonies that had sprung up in this country in the 1820s and ‘30s,” Slay said.

In his youth Joseph Davis was inspired by Scottish philosopher Robert Owens, and Owens’ work manifested itself in Davis’ style of plantation ownership.

“Robert Owens believed in the rational treatment of people and was a proto-socialist in his views,” Slay said.

Slaves on the Davis plantation were well educated and comparatively well treated. They were allowed to open a store and even had their own criminal justice system.

“Other planters in the area did not like it. They called them ‘Joseph Davis’ Free Negros,”’ Slay said.

Among the best educated was Benjamin Montgomery, who ran the plantation store. Montgomery was taught to read and write and was trained in drafting and land survey. In the 1850s he invented a steam-operated propeller to provide propulsion to boats in shallow water but was denied the patent because he was a slave.

When Union forces captured New Orleans in 1862, Davis fled Warren County for Bolton. Few slaves went with him.

“As forward looking as it was living in that system, no one decided to cast their lot with him. They decided to go out on their own,” Slay said.

Instead, they continued to farm. When Union Adm. David Porter arrived in Warren County, he found the freedmen to be among the most intelligent people living along the river, Slay said.

“The army didn’t just come in and set up that experiment. There was a groundwork that was there before the Civil War. A culture was already established for the autonomy and a market among the African-Americans living in that area. They just carried it forward,” Slay said.

In 1866, the federal government began giving land back to ex-Confederates who swore allegiance to the United States, and Davis eventually regained his land.

“Joseph Davis fearing that radical congress would revoke those rights to the land decided he would sell the land to Benjamin Montgomery.”

Montgomery purchased on a “rent-to-own” style contract for $300,000, Slay said. After a series of crop failures and the high rent on land, the experiment failed by the mid-1870s.