JEFFERSON DAVIS' LICENSE DISCOVERED.

Byline: Louinn Lota Associated Press Writer

In his quest to unravel Southern secrets of culture and economics, a university professor discovered Jefferson Davis' marriage license tucked away among thousands of Natchez, Miss., court documents.

The license shows the marriage of Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, to Natchez native Varina Howell in 1845.

It was found in 1991 by Ronald Davis, a professor at California State University, Northridge. Its estimated worth is $25,000 - to a collector.

The historically exciting discovery was not made known until now to protect the document from theft and to set up a system in which a public record such as a marriage license can be secured for posterity.

Davis, though, is not just another romantic Yankee taking advantage of famed Southern hospitality, out to make a buck. A historian in the South's agripolitical economy, Davis has been making his pilgrimage to Natchez since 1968 to study the planter elite and its slaves, an unusual colony of free blacks and the social interaction between the groups.

In his 1993 book, "The Black Experience in Natchez, 1720-1880," he chronicles the little-known lives of blacks who were never enslaved. It was used by the U.S. Interior Department to develop a park in the Old Natchez Historic District.

"They were betwixt and between freedom and slavery," Davis said. "They had a foot in both worlds. They couldn't be bought or sold, but they played the role as a caste of servants. They acquired property, wealth, education, but, nevertheless, they played a servant role. They raised their children to follow in this capacity."

Davis knows this is an explosive topic. Some critics say research like his doesn't address what is needed to bridge the gap of today's racial problems.

A 100-page report released in January by the Multicultural Collaborative, a coalition of 11 community-based groups formed after the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, said such cultural appreciation as Davis' may give historical perspective, but does nothing to grapple with causes of racial conflict.

"We've got to move beyond holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya,' " said Ron Wakabayashi, Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission executive.

Since the Interior Department commissioned his book in 1991, Davis began taking a band of Cal State Northridge graduate students to Natchez for research on topics including: the Jews of Natchez; gardens of planters; black and white spinsters and widows of Natchez; and the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Not only does Davis conduct the graduate seminar every spring, out of the research has come the biennial Historic Natchez Conference, a gathering of international scholars who present papers, and a summer internship to continue in the work of cleaning, cataloging and placing each of the 90,000 Natchez court case documents in acid-free folders ready for microfilming.

The Historic Natchez Foundation, a group of local history buffs, graciously and literally gave Davis and his students the keys to their kingdom, including a key to the courthouse so they could study documents at all hours and a tab at a dockside tavern whose owners told the group to lock up and leave whatever they owed behind.

Mimi Miller, a member of the Historic Natchez Foundation, says the people of Natchez gain a new appreciation of their town with each new batch of students.

"We call ourself California State University Southridge, the Natchez branch," she said. "Everybody looks forward to the Californians coming because they're not just here to tour the antebellum homes. They're inquiring. They're so enamored of Natchez history. Then when they go on to do their doctorates, they take that interest to the University of Maryland, Purdue. Guess what? We are creating a legion of researchers."