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Historical Accuracy Of 'Free State Of Jones'

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Free State of Jones is a historically accurate movie with its’ depiction of characters, events, setting, and details of the famous revolt of farmers in Jones County, Mississippi. The movie Free State of Jones is based off the Jones County rebellion of 1863. In the Jones County rebellion of 1863, Newton Knight and other small farmers enlisted into the Confederate Army, however most small farmers became deserters when the Confederacy passed the Second Conscription Act. The Second Conscription Act, otherwise known as the “20 negro law” made it to where if a soldier in the Confederate army owned 20 slaves or more were exempt from fighting. It also said for every 20 owned slaves after that, another family member was also exempt. The small farmers …show more content…

In both the movie and real life, one of his most notorious enemies was Colonel Robert Lowry, his only job was to shut down the revolution by finding and killing anyone associated with the revolution. Another enemy of Knight and the rebellion was the entire South that supported the Confederate government. Many residents outside of Jones County hunted down, threatened, beaten, and lynched any and all members of the rebellion that they could find. This was shown in the movie an abundance of times, but it did leave out most of the horrible things that was done to the members of the …show more content…

The government of Mississippi charged his great-grandson with charges of miscegenation, which is two people of different race having sexual relations with one another. This was back in a time when most southers still believed that even if you had a drop of African-American blood, that a person was a “negro”. Because his great-grandmother was African-American, he was convicted of miscegenation and sentenced to five years in prison. However, the state supreme court overturned the decision because the court didn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was ⅛

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