The pre-arsenal communities, which are now recognized as areas where the descendants of slaves were able to acquire land after emancipation, have a historical narrative that suggests black landowners in the 20th century primarily engaged in subsistence farming rather than commercial agriculture. However, it is important to acknowledge that the planter families who owned the land in the post-Civil War era were the same families that settlers identified as the original landowners in 1805. For instance, Grandison Harrison, as documented in the 1870 freedman's bank records, owned a plantation located four miles south of Huntsville in what was known as Mullins Flat territory of the Powhatan nation. Similarly, William Harris owned a plantation prior to the Civil War, and his ownership was only recorded with the county after his death in 1866. Yancy and Everett Horton, brothers, were also prominent planters in the region.

These planters were able to establish large-scale cotton plantations on prime land, which contributed to their affluence and aristocratic status. They were already well-to-do, well-educated, and had the means to engage in banking, mercantile businesses, manufacturing, and politics. This allowed them to accumulate significant wealth and control various industries, including agriculture. The families cultivated a diverse range of crops such as figs, crabapples, persimmons, and the magnolia tree, which added to the beauty of their estates. Additionally, they cultivated indigo rice, sweet potatoes, and raised livestock such as horses, cattle, hogs, mules, and sheep. The families were able to prosper and accumulate generational wealth due to their extensive land ownership, including cotton plantations. Scholars like Beverly Curry have noted that the Hortons and Jacobs families were even more affluent than their white neighbors, while Ben Hoksbergn highlighted that they maintained solidly middle-class lifestyles even during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This prosperity was a result of their immense land ownership and the operation of their own tribal government.

Chief Rising Sun