The Mississippi-American Cotton Company (often called The Macc) was a prominent early American corporation founded in 1851 by Elias Wainwright in Jackson, Mississippi and which became the wealthiest company in America by 1870. Wainwright became one of the first men to own a company that owned land in multiple states and and the Macc owned as much as 20% of cotton-growing land in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana by 1865, thanks to Northern investors and low land values. Competing with the Savannah Cotton Company based out of Georgia, the two "Cottonies" soon cornered the cotton market and undersold most plantation owners, allowing them to buy up their land. As the Macc did not own slaves, which Wainwright considered to be an expensive and cumbersome way to attract work, many towns and far