Agrarianism vs. Capitalism: How tobacco growers in Tennessee took down monopolies

In 1904 Felix Ewing, a wealthy tobacco grower in Robertson County, called a meeting with State Representative John W. Gaines and other growers at Port Royal, Tennessee to discuss the American Tobacco Company. The company, under ownership of James B. Duke, was developing a monopoly over the tobacco market in the United States and price fixing the purchase of raw tobacco. This left both large and small-scale tobacco growers desperate, with many losing money on their product year over year. The goal of the meeting was simple: devise a plan to take down the American Tobacco Company and raise the price of tobacco to pre-monopolistic prices. The next day, Representative Gaines sent a complaint letter to U.S. Attorney-General William H. Moody against Duke and his perceived practices. He also announced the need of an ‘Evidence Committee’ led by Ewing to prove whether the American Tobacco Company was monopolistic and attacked Duke with articles published in newspapers across the country, highlighting the purchase of the British Tobacco Company in 1902 as a violation of the “1890 Act to Protect Trade and Commerce against Unlawful Restraints and Monopolies”.

Ewing and Gaines continued to draw attention to Duke’s American Tobacco Company the following four years using multiple tactics. Gaines established two congressional hearings in 1904 and 1906 to hear evidence from tobacco growers about the monopolistic tendencies of the American Tobacco Company while Ewing formed the Planter’s Protective Association, a quasi-union that oversaw the selling of tobacco in the ‘Black Patch Tobacco Region’ of Tennessee and Kentucky. Tobacco growers could join the Association and collectively withhold their product from the market until better prices were offered, which Ewing believed would force the American Tobacco Company to offer higher prices. It was a success, and tobacco sold by the Planter’s Protective Association prices often sold 50 - 100% higher than tobacco outside the Association during successful years.

Duke combated these issues similar to how corporations combated labor unions. His buyers selectively offered a profitable price to tobacco growers without matching the highest price requested by the Association. This created an environment where tobacco growers could sell directly to the American Tobacco Company again at a quicker and profitable pace than the Association, who oftentimes withheld tobacco sales for months to obtain higher prices. This then caused more growers to leave the Association, which removed the Association’s leverage to sell at a higher price. This also created years of cyclical fluctuation where record high sales with the Association would cause members to leave and accept slightly lower prices from the American Tobacco Company until it became unprofitable again, to which growers would then go back to the Association to raise the sale price.

The environment created by the American Tobacco Company and Association led to the formation of the Night Riders, a vigilante group whose goal was to stop the American Tobacco Company and prevent non-loyal Association members from selling tobacco in the Black Patch. Although disavowed by Ewing, the group terrorized tobacco growers into staying or joining the Association and burned any tobacco crops not grown for the Association. They also burned multiple warehouses owned by the American Tobacco Company. From 1904 - 1908 they raided multiple towns and communities in Tennessee and Kentucky during a period of unrest known as the Black Patch Tobacco Wars. Although largely unsuccessful in taking down the American Tobacco Company, the terror the Night Riders caused throughout the region has become a part of legend and folklore in the region.

By 1908, Ewing and Gaines also celebrated their first victory when the Department of Justice launched a lawsuit against the American Tobacco Company. However, their biggest victory came in 1911 when the American Tobacco Company, along with Standard Oil, were ruled to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act by the United States Supreme Court and were ordered to dissolve. This ruling was significant, and is still felt today in part, because it stated that the American Tobacco Company was “in and of itself, as well as each and all of the elements composing it whether corporate or individual, whether considered collectively or separately [was] in restraint of trade and an attempt to monopolize, and a monopolization within the first and second sections of the Anti-Trust Act.” This interpretation is now being used in the high-profile suits against Google, United States v. Google LLC and Meta Platforms, Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms, Inc. Who could have known 100 years later tobacco growers in rural Tennessee would be affecting companies used by everyone around the world?

Today, many of the places where tobacco growers worked together to take down the American Tobacco Company are also preserved throughout the Black Patch Tobacco Region. Some of the most well-known are Glen Raven, Felix Ewing’s home, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, Wessyngton, the largest tobacco plantation in Tennessee, listed in 1971, and Port Royal, where Ewing and Gaines met in 1904 and later attacked by the Night Riders, became a Tennessee State Park in 1978.