Dockery Plantation was a 10000 acres (40.5 km²) cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

 plantation and sawmill on the Sunflower River

Sunflower River

The Sunflower River is one of the main tributaries of the Yazoo River in the U.S. state of Mississippi. It is navigable by barge for 50 miles. It rises in De Soto County, Mississippi near the Tennessee border and flows south for 100 miles to the Yazoo River...

 between Ruleville

Ruleville, Mississippi

Ruleville is a small city in the fertile Mississippi Delta region in Sunflower County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 3,234 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Ruleville is located at ....

 and Cleveland

Cleveland, Mississippi

Cleveland is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 12,334 as of the 2010 census.Cleveland has a fairly large commercial economy, with numerous restaurants, stores, and services along U.S. Highway 61...

, Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

. It is widely regarded as the place where Delta blues

Delta blues

The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...

 music was born. Blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 musicians residents at Dockery included Charlie Patton

Charlie Patton

Charlie Patton , better known as Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", and is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man...

, Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 2006.

History

The plantation was started in 1895 by Will Dockery

Will Dockery

Will Dockery built from scratch the Dockery Plantation, the famous home of such original Delta blues musicians as Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, and Pops Staples.-Plantation:...

 (1865-1936), a graduate of the University of Mississippi

University of Mississippi

The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...

 who originally bought the land for its timber but recognised the richness of its soil. At the time, much of the Delta

Mississippi Delta

The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...

 area was still a wilderness of cypress and gum trees, roamed by panthers and wolves and plagued with mosquitoes. The land was gradually cleared and drained for cotton cultivation, which encouraged an influx of black labourers. Some became settled sharecroppers

Sharecropping

Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...

, who would work a portion of the land in return for a share of the crop, while others were itinerant workers. Dockery earned a good reputation for treating his workers and sharecroppers fairly, and thus attracted workers from throughout the South.

Dockery’s land was relatively remote, but was opened up for development by a new branch of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad

Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad

The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad was incorporated in 1882 and was part of the Illinois Central Railroad system . Construction began in Jackson, Mississippi, and continued to Yazoo City, Mississippi. The line was later expanded through the Mississippi Delta and on to Memphis, Tennessee...

, known as the Yellow Dog

Yellow dog

- Animals :* Yellow Dog or Carolina Dog, wild dog variety in the southern United States* Nureongi, a Korean dog raised for its meat* Old Yeller, novel about a yellow dog* Yellow Dog Dingo, a character in Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories- Arts :...

. Around 1900, Dockery had a rail terminal built on his plantation, so connecting his land with the main rail system at Rosedale

Rosedale, Mississippi

Rosedale is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 2,414 at the 2000 census.It is the same "Rosedale" that bluesman Robert Johnson referenced in his song "Traveling Riverside Blues." Locals claim that Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at the intersection of...

. Because of its circuitous route, this local line was known as the "Pea Vine".

Dockery Plantation eventually supported over 2,000 workers, who were paid in the plantation’s own coins. As well as a railroad terminal, it had its own general store, post office, school, doctor, and churches. The workers’ quarters included boardinghouses, where they lived, socialized and played music, particularly guitars which had been introduced to the area by Mexican workers in the 1890s. Although Dockery himself took no interest in his workers' music, he made it easy for them to travel and to spend their leisure time as they pleased.

Charley Patton and his family are believed to have moved around 1900 to the Dockery Plantation, where he came under the influence of an older musician, Henry Sloan

Henry Sloan

Henry Sloan was an African American musician, one of the earliest figures in the history of Delta Blues. Very little is known for certain about his life, other than he tutored Charlie Patton in the ways of the blues. There have been suggestions that he moved to Chicago shortly after World War I...

. In turn, Patton became the central figure of a group of blues musicians including Willie Brown

Willie Brown (musician)

Willie Brown was an American delta blues guitarist and singer.- Life and career :Born Willie Lee Brown in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Brown played with such notables as Charley Patton, and Robert Johnson. He was not known to be a self-promoting frontman, preferring to "second" other musicians...

, Tommy Johnson, and Eddie "Son" House

Son House

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...

, who played around the local area. Because of its location, central to Sunflower County’s black population of some 35,000 in 1920, the plantation became a known centre for informal musical entertainment. By the mid-1920s, the group widened to include a younger generation of musicians including Robert Johnson, Chester "Howlin’ Wolf" Burnett, Roebuck "Pops" Staples

Pops Staples

Roebuck "Pops" Staples was a Mississippi-born Gospel and R&B musician.A "pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 70s," he was an accomplished songwriter, guitarist and singer...

, and David "Honeyboy" Edwards

David Honeyboy Edwards

David "Honeyboy" Edwards was a Delta blues guitarist and singer from the American South. Edwards was the last Delta bluesman before his 2011 death.-Life and career:Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi...

. Some of these were itinerant workers while others lived more permanently on the farms.

In 1936, the plantation was inherited by Joe Rice Dockery (1906-1982). With agricultural mechanisation and the employment attractions of the larger cities further north, the plantation settlements gradually disappeared, although some of the historic buildings still remain. The farm later diversified to produce corn, rice and soybeans. Later members of the Dockery family have established a foundation to fund research into the Delta Blues.
The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Today the site hosts a small number of private tours, lectures, and events in partnership with the Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...

 Institute of Jazz, Delta State University

Delta State University

Delta State University, also known as DSU, is a regional public university located in Cleveland, Mississippi, United States, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta...

, and other academic and cultural institutions.

Historic marker

A marker designating Dockery Plantation as a site on the Mississippi Blues Trail

Mississippi Blues Trail

The Mississippi Blues Trail, created by the Mississippi Blues Commission, is a project to place interpretive markers at the most notable historical sites related to the growth of the blues throughout the state of Mississippi. The trail extends from the border of Louisiana in southern Mississippi...

 is an acknowledgment of the important contribution of the plantation to the development of the blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 in Mississippi.

The marker was placed in Cleveland, Mississippi

Cleveland, Mississippi

Cleveland is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 12,334 as of the 2010 census.Cleveland has a fairly large commercial economy, with numerous restaurants, stores, and services along U.S. Highway 61...

. Governor Haley Barbour

Haley Barbour

Haley Reeves Barbour is an American Republican politician currently serving as the 63rd Governor of Mississippi. He gained a national spotlight in August 2005 after Mississippi was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Barbour won re-election as Governor in 2007...

stated