Category Archives: Old South

17 January 2013

What Defines the South?

By Mark R. Cheathem

Update: After I scheduled the post yesterday, Karen Cox (@SassyProf) and several others had a lively exchange on Twitter about the topic, especially the place of sweet tea and cornbread. You can find the exchanges in our Twitter streams.

I’m teaching the Old South course this semester. This is my second time teaching the course, and I determined to make some changes this time around.

One of the changes that I made was to spend the first full class period discussing the question: Is there a South? For historiographical foundation, students were supposed to read two articles by C. Vann Woodward (who, as I informed them, was their academic great-great-grandfather): “The Irony of Southern History” (1953) and “Look Away, Look Away” (1993).

The discussion ranged widely in some expected and unexpected ways. Students were fairly certain that there is a distinct southern culture, centered on football, language, and fashion. They also seemed to agree that a geographical South existed. It consists of Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Some wanted to include the Florida panhandle, southern Missouri, southwestern Virginia, parts of Kentucky and Maryland, and West Virginia.

The two most interesting parts of the class discussion centered on two issues. One was a debate about whether a “redneck” was the equivalent of a southerner and, similarly, whether being “country” was the same as being southern. The students mentioned three different types of “redneckiness” (a term I’m going to trademark): cowboy (hats, boots, belt buckles, etc.); farmer (overalls, dip can in the pocket, experience in agricultural work); and hunters (camouflage, hunting animals for sport).

The second was what students didn’t mention as contributing to a distinct South. Gender and religion were not discussed at all. Climate was only briefly discussed after I brought it up. Aside from brief mentions of racism and slavery, no one mentioned the black experience as contributing to a distinct South. Part of the reason, I think, is because I think there just an assumption that of course that’s part of what makes the South distinct. I also think (and told the students so) that Americans in general, and white southerners in particular, define the South from a white perspective without considering that there is also a black South and a biracial South (and even a multiracial/ethnic South).

I finished by showing TV and music video clips illustrating different types of southern identities and constructs. The clips included The Andy Griffith Show, Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Might Be a Redneck” routine, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, BUCKWILD, The Dukes of Hazzard, Big Boi (feat. Ludicrous and T.I.), “In the A,” and Souljah Boy, “Turn My Swag On.”

My hope is that as we go back and look at the development of the South from the precolonial period through the Reconstruction period, students will be able to see connections between the region’s past and modern southern identities.

10 comments | posted in Old South, Teaching

14 October 2012

BrANCH 2012: Peter Parish Memorial Lecture: Second Slavery and the First (U.S.) Republic

By Mark R. Cheathem

Ed Baptist gave the Peter Parish Memorial Lecture on Friday evening. For someone who flew in shortly before his talk, I thought he did a great job.

Baptist opened with a summary of Solomon Northup’s life, ending with the observation that overlapping networks and competing claims saved Northup from murder and that financial networks enslaved him and protected him by giving his body a financial present and future.

That story provided the transition to the focus of Baptist’s lecture: the need for 19th-century historians to reintegrate economic history and slavery. He started by explaining why historians don’t talk about financial history. After providing a historiographical overview, he concluded that beginning in the 1970s, historians took a “nap” that left economic history informed predominantly by literary theory and individual stories that lacked an overarching narrative.

Baptist then turned to describing what a new economic history of slavery might look like, emphasizing that it needed to include behavioral economics couldn’t be reduced to just words and numbers. [My notes on this don't make sense now, but at the time, I knew what the latter part of the last sentence meant.]

The description of his narrative, as described, went something like this:

1st slavery: 1492-1800 witnessed the introduction of the transatlantic slave trade, with an acceleration of scale and profit between 1700 and 1800 (1450-1700: 3 mil. Africans enslaved; 1700-1800: 6 mil.).

2nd slavery (1800-60): Southern slavery made cotton a key commodities product consumed on an industrial scale; indeed, it was the key commodity of the 1st Industrial Revolution. Slave productivity increased 400% between 1800 and 1860, keeping the price of cotton low. The minimum efficiency of slaves’ cotton productivity continually grew during the period, from 50 lbs./day in 1805 to 200 lbs./day by 1850.

From 1804 to 1819, American entrepreneurs and Anglo-Dutch merchant banks built the financial infrastructure for slavery’s growth. The migration of slaves to the cotton frontier allowed the U.S. to gain 50% of global cotton sales and increase cotton-picking efficiency to 100 lbs./day. The Panic of 1819 bubble, which plunged the U.S. into its worst financial depression to date, proceeded from three factors: disappearing regulation; new credit instruments; and American overconfidence.

From 1819-32 [the end date wasn't clear to me], the 2nd Bank of the U.S. provided financial regulation. Global investors became linked to the cotton market, allowing the emergence of new slave trading firms, such as Franklin & Armfield. These new slave trading firms were run by professionals who moved a plurality of slaves to New Orleans and set patterns for slave trading economics. These men chafed against the Bank’s regulation and supported Jackson during the Bank War.*

Between 1832 [see above] and the 1840s, the Bank War produced a credit free-for-all that drove the spread of cotton, land sales, and slavery in Deep South. Baptist tied this surge of new economic activity specifically to a new slave mortgage that commodified slave bodies. Slave owners wanted credit, banks wanted bonds, and the new slave mortgage satisfied both desires. The resulting financial bubble drove cotton prices down and resulted in the Panics of 1837 and 1839.

Between the 1840s and 1860, northern factors gave planters credit, who distributed it to neighbors. Cotton grew in importance as annual production reached 4.5 mil. bales annually by 1860 and helped entrench the institution of slavery in the South economically.

Baptist rushed the last section of his lecture, probably because he was already over time by this point. Personally, I was interested enough that I wish he had taken his time, but I’m not sure everyone agreed with me. I’ll have some more comments on his lecture in a later post.

* I think a study of the Bank veto and other BUS-related votes that analyzed the connection between slave ownership and opposition/support for the Bank would make a great project for someone.

Leave a comment | posted in Edward Baptist, Old South, Slavery

29 March 2012

The Evolution of a Book, Part 3: The Book Outline

By Mark R. Cheathem

(Part 1 and Part 2 of this series)

My students will probably think I’m lying, but I actually didn’t like or even follow outlines until I was in grad school. I thought they stifled my creativity and the organic development of my writing. In actuality, I set myself up for failure as a writer, something I learned the hard way in my master’s program. Now, I am a firm believer that tackling longer projects, such as a thesis or a dissertation, requires an outline of some sort.

For the Jackson biography, I sketched a chapter-by-chapter outline identifying the main subjects of each chapter. I also broke down each chapter into smaller components.

This first outline is the one that I submitted as part of my book proposal to LSU Press:

  • Introduction: Provides the major arguments that I am making about Jackson in historiographical context.
  • Chapter 1: “Gentleman”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s early life in the Carolinas, focusing on his upbringing as a southerner and his exposure to slavery.
  • Chapter 2: “Speculator”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s training as a lawyer, his move to Tennessee, and his marriage to Rachel Donelson Robards. These three decisions, all speculative, allowed him to become successful as a land speculator, a member of the Nashville gentry, a politician, and a militia officer.
  • Chapter 3: “Patron”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s role as a patron to young men and the benefits (namely, the adoption of his son and his care for nephews such as Andrew Jackson Donelson) and the difficulties (the feud with the Benton brothers) associated with being a patron. The associations that he built during this period of his life would stay with him throughout his career.
  • Chapter 4: “Hero”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s role in the War of 1812, including his prosecution of the war against the Creek and his emergence as the Hero of New Orleans. The Battle of New Orleans in particular would solidify his support among many southerners.
  • Chapter 5: “Conqueror”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s involvement in treaty making with the southeastern tribes and his invasion and subsequent governance of Florida. These actions demonstrated Jackson’s belief in territorial expansion and his commitment to controlling the actions and movement of slaves and Native Americans, all concerns of southerners.
  • Chapter 6: “Democrat”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s emergence as a Democrat during the presidential elections of 1824 and 1828. His grappling with democratic ideas served to reinforce his belief in an expanded white democracy that supported the ideals of mainstream southern society.
  • Chapter 7: “President”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s two presidential administrations. These eight years witnessed Jackson struggling to support southern ideals while balancing his responsibilities as president and leader of the Democratic party.
  • Chapter 8: “Planter”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s early retirement years once he left the presidency. His attempts to make a profitable living as a planter met with difficulty as his adopted son, Andrew Jackson, Jr., made poor financial decisions. His plight was not uncommon for southern planters during and after the Panic of 1837.
  • Chapter 9: “Statesman”—This chapter will examine Jackson’s influence over the Democratic party during his retirement years. He was particularly interested in maintaining party control over the national government and in supporting Manifest Destiny, specifically in Texas, which was one of the southern slave owners’ primary goals in this decade and beyond.
  • Conclusion: Explains the significance of looking at Jackson as a southerner in order to understand both the personal life of a president and the political consequences of his personal life.

This second outline is the one that I used for the first two chapters:

I. Chapter 1: “Gentleman”
A. Jackson’s childhood
1. Encounters with Native Americans
2. Education
3. Influence of mother
4. Loss of family
5. Hatred of British
B. Jackson’s teenage years
1. Urban setting
2. Social interactions
3. Social network
C. Jackson’s early adulthood
1. Study of law
2. Purchase of slave
II. Chapter 2: “Speculator”
A. Move to East Tennessee
1. Feud with Sevier
B. Move to Nashville
1. Land speculation
2. Business interests
3. Romance with RJ
C. Public life
1. Militia membership
2. Social network
3. Judicial appointment
4. Political appointment

As I’ll show in a future post, the submitted book manuscript looks similar to these outlines, but there were substantial differences by the time I finished. More changes are likely to occur before the book is published.

Part 4 of the series is here.

4 comments | posted in Andrew Jackson, Books, Early Republic, Old South, Writing advice

12 March 2012

The Evolution of a Book, Part 2: The Book Proposal

By Mark R. Cheathem

(Part 1 of this series is here.)

The book proposal that I sent to LSU Press in 2006 was modeled on one that I used for Old Hickory’s Nephew [1]. I tweaked the focus of the Jackson proposal based on my experience with LSU Press and advice from the 1st edition of William Germano’s book, Getting It Published.

The structure of my book proposal was:

TITLE

“Andrew Jackson, Southerner” was (and still is) the tentative title. My wife thinks all of my book titles should have Old Hickory in them, so I’m going to suggest a title to LSU Press with a variation of Jackson’s nickname in it.

REASON FOR WRITING

I hope saying “to make oodles of money” wasn’t too crass.

PROPOSED LENGTH  

100,000 words

ILLUSTRATIONS

I proposed 8, but I don’t know what the number will wind up being.

PROPOSED COMPLETION DATE

I asked for five years but had to request a six-month extension of the original Fall 2011 date in order to keep from completely embarrassing myself by submitting an incoherent and error-riddled draft, one with overly long sentences that needed editing badly.

CONTENT

I provided my main argument, that Jackson was a southerner, not a westerner, then a chapter outline with a short description for each. The original chapter titles were:

Chapter 1: “Gentleman”

Chapter 2: “Speculator”

Chapter 3: “Patron”

Chapter 4: “Hero”

Chapter 5: “Conqueror” 

Chapter 6: “Democrat”

Chapter 7: “President”

Chapter 8: “Planter”

Chapter 9: “Statesman”

After including a short summary of my career to that point in an “About the Author Section,” I concluded with two of the most important sections (or so I’ve been told):

READERSHIP AND MARKET

I pitched the book as one that would make a good biography for classroom use (shorter than Remini’s, longer than James Curtis’), as well as one that would appeal to the general public.

COMPARISON WITH OTHER BOOKS

Of course, I had no idea in August 2006 that Jon Meacham had shifted the focus of his Jackson book to a biography that would win a Pulitzer and become a best-seller. This was what I wrote about the two books that I saw as possible competition: “Two biographies of Andrew Jackson have appeared recently: H.W. Brands’ Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times and Andrew Burstein’s The Passions of Andrew Jackson. Neither of these biographies treats Jackson’s southern identity; instead, they either pass over it or present the same, brief examples about Jackson’s management of slaves, ownership of plantations, etc.”

Using this particular book proposal structure doesn’t guarantee success, but I think it addresses the major points that publishers are looking for. While I hope this post helps someone, if you haven’t read Germano’s book, I strongly recommend that you do so before putting together a proposal for an academic press.

[1] Advice that  Tommy Anderson, an English professor and colleague at SNHU (and now on faculty at my alma mater), shared with me helped me immensely on the OHN proposal.

Part 3 of the series is here.

Leave a comment | posted in Andrew Jackson, Books, Old South

27 February 2012

The Evolution of a Book, Part 1: Choosing a Topic

By Mark R. Cheathem

I’m currently finishing up a book manuscript for LSU Press tentatively entitled “Andrew Jackson, Southerner.” As I’m completing the writing phase and enter the editing process, I wanted to look back and examine how the book developed. This post will be the first in a series that I’ll write looking ahead to the book’s publication.*

As I was editing the Donelson biography in the summer of 2006, I began thinking about the topic of my next book. I had several ideas, including:

  • A study of the southern Know-Nothing party
  • A study of the Constitutional Union party
  • A biography of Millard Fillmore
  • A study of Jackson’s Kitchen cabinet
  • A study of slavery in Tennessee
  • A biography of Jackson

The latter two topics were at the top of my list. Chase C. Mooney wrote a study of slavery several decades ago, but its usefulness was limited by its organization and the growth of slavery historiography. Tackling the topic would be difficult. I lived in New Hampshire, so the logistics of getting access to sources was a major obstacle. And, to be honest, I wasn’t confident that I knew enough about the nitty-gritty of researching slave records to do an adequate job.

The second topic was a better fit in a number of ways. I was very familiar with Jacksonian historiography, and I thought there was a need for a brief, fresh Jackson biography. (Remini’s was in its third decade in print, Hendrik Booraem’s covered only Jackson’s time in the Carolinas, and Andrew Burstein’s took a limited and unusual perspective on Jackson’s passions.) The two reasons I hesitated were logistics (see above) and the fear of pegging myself too narrowly as someone who only wrote biographies of Jackson and his family.

When my family and I went out for dinner with John and Jeanne Marszalek at Old Venice Pizza in Starkville that summer, then, I was looking for guidance. I told John about my ideas and asked for his advice. He asked me what I wanted to be known for; my reply was, “I want to be recognized as one of the major Jacksonian scholars.” Not surprisingly, his recommendation was the Jackson biography. John argued that attaching my name to a well-known figure such as Jackson was more apt to gain me the recognition I sought than a state-level study of slavery.

John confirmed my gut feeling. I sent the proposal for “Andrew Jackson, Southerner,” an interpretation of Old Hickory as a “southern patron, planter, and politician,” to Bert Wyatt-Brown, who was editor of the Southern Biography Series, in August 2006. The Press signed off on it, with a delivery deadline of October 2011 for the approximately 100,000-word manuscript. My purpose was to write a modern biography accessible to undergraduates and general readers. I also wanted to bring a new interpretation to Jackson’s life.

(Part 2 is here.)

* I have an advance contract with LSU Press for this book. If it’s not fit to print, I guess you’ll read about my failure!

Leave a comment | posted in Andrew Jackson, John F. Marszalek, Old South

29 October 2011

SHA 2011: New Perspectives on the Jacksonian South

By Mark R. Cheathem

My colleague, Natalie Inman, likes to call obstacles “adventures.” She would have enjoyed the “adventure” that was our panel this afternoon.

The saga began when I tried to find the room our panel was scheduled for. Originally, we were in the Sheraton, but SHA representatives at the registration handed out room changes to the program. Emblazoned on the front of the flyer was the note that “all room changes are noted in RED and refer to rooms located” next door at the Radisson. Our room, the Chesapeake, was in red, so one would think we were in the Radisson, right? Not so fast. After traipsing over to the Radisson in the sleet (since when does Baltimore get snow in October?), I, along with several other people looking for the Chesapeake, found it locked and were informed that the Sheraton had a Chesapeake room as well. After a couple of queries that provided contradictory answers, we finally made it to the Sheraton Chesapeake room. The view of the snow falling against the Baltimore skyline was great, but the room was . . . snug. There weren’t enough seats for everyone (a common theme with the Southern, it seems). Everyone had a good attitude about it, though, and all of the panelists made it on time.

On to the panel, then. The inimitable Jim Broussard opened the session with the threat of flogging for any panelist who overstepped his allotted 20 minutes. Let me stop here and note: Yes, we realized it was an all-male panel. Craig Friend, the 2011 SHA program chair, and I made every effort to bring gender diversity to the panel, but we simply couldn’t make it work. In fact, I’m lucky I made it on the panel at all. I think Craig took pity on me when the (gender-inclusive) panel I tried to put together blew up. My hat off to Craig for his usual stellar work.

Matt Schoenbachler (Univ. of North Alabama) got us off to a great start with his paper on the Relief War in Kentucky following the Panic of 1819. The takeaway for me was his observation that the post-War of 1812 years paralleled the Confederation period of the 1780s.

I presented next. My paper was choppier than I realized when I submitted it a month or so ago, but it is what it is, as the kids say.

Miles Smith of TCU presented on Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. I’ve always wondered how Johnson, who openly lived in relationships with slave women and had at least two daughters with one slave, Julia Chinn, was able to win the vice presidency in 1836. Miles argued that Johnson’s political ideology was more important to most Democrats and southerners than his domestic living situation.

John Hall (Univ. of Wisconsin) spoke about Thomas Jesup. I’ve come across Jesup in researching Jackson, but I never realized how reviled he was. I thought John’s paper was great, and, as we told him later, if academia doesn’t work out, he’s got a future in radio with his voice.

Dan Dupre (UNC-Charlotte) offered comments on the papers. He noted the continued importance and murkiness of the frontier South and made recommendations for all of us to think about. In short, Dan did what you hope a commenter does: he framed criticism in a positive and helpful manner.

The questions were short. Afterwards, I think we all had several people stop and talk about aspects of our papers. Dan had to cut out, but the rest of us made our way down to Shula’s to converse and commiserate. I enjoyed getting to know the panelists better and look forward to reading more of their work.

As always, my notes were incomplete, so if I missed anything important, I’m sure someone will point it out to me.

2 comments | posted in Andrew Jackson, Old South, Southern Historical Association

7 April 2011

Exhibit A: Why Studying History Is Important

By Mark R. Cheathem

Ed. note: In yesterday’s blog post, Michael Lynch has reaction to the online comments about my TSLA opinion piece.

I usually ignore the anonymous online comments left on websites, but Monday’s Tennessean opinion piece on slavery at The Hermitage offers an illustration of why reading and studying history is so important.

Sample comments (as originally written) in response to the editorial:

Will the Confederate states be honest? Yes! Here are some facts that are not discussed by the pc crowd:

Free blacks also owned slaves
Abe Lincoln was a tyrannt like Gaddaffi
There are records of blacks fighting for the South
The War Between the States resulted in a seimic shift of power from the states to the federal government
N B Forrest, RE Lee and other Southern heros should be honored

Actually, lots of people have discussed these facts. Kevin Levin’s blog is a great resource for examining their veracity.

One fact never mentioned is their were also white slaves. White slaves were called indentured servants. How many white people whose ancestors were slave, do you here about being discriminated against?? None I know of.

Several of the commenters corrected this myth of “white slavery.”

If the civil war was about the North freeing the Southern slaves, why did the North have slaves?

This reference to the handful of slaves still existing in NJ in 1860 is a common argument used by defenders of the Old South’s way of life. The reality that northern states had abolished slavery, via immediate or gradual emancipation, isn’t mentioned. It also conflates the origins, causes, and goals of the war.

When will the descendants of these slaves tell the truth about Nathan Bedford Forrest and the rest of the Civil War? When will they admit that the US Flag flew longer over slavery than the Confederate Flag? The ignorance that is spread about this war is unbeliveable.

Those who demonize the events of History by todays standards, of a period that was fully acceptable during it’s time are only serving their own personel agenda. They care nothing for the truth, but instead seem to be trying to find an excuse to avoid it!

The truth is out there if you care, but you won’t find it at the Hermitage.

“We shouldn’t judge the past by today’s standards.” I’ve always found this line of reasoning an interesting one. I hate to invoke Godwin’s Law, but I think it’s acceptable here. I wonder if the commenter endorses what Hitler and the Nazis did as morally defensible, since they were doing what was “fully acceptable during it’s [sic] time.”

As for The Hermitage, it has come a long way in trying to present a well-rounded view of life on the plantation, both black and white. The archaeological work by Larry McKee and his team and the exhibits put together by the Hermitage staff present visitors with the contradictions of the home owned by a man long hailed as the defender of democracy. Andrew Jackson was representative of many segments of American society; the southern planter was no exception.

I don’t have any hopes that the commenters actually learned, or wanted to learn, anything from those who presented them with historical evidence that contradicted their view of the past. Hopefully, others reading the comments did.

Leave a comment | posted in Civil War, Old South, Slavery, The Hermitage

29 November 2010

Review of Gene Dattel’s Cotton and Race in the Making of America

By Mark R. Cheathem

Gene Dattel’s Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Costs of Economic Power (Ivan R. Dee, 2009) is a book for which I had been looking. While one can find plenty of studies of slavery and the Old South, book-length works focused on cotton’s role, specifically its economic influence, in shaping the antebellum United States are scarce. Dattel’s attempt to address that shortcoming reaches beyond the antebellum period; for the purposes of this review, however, only the first ten chapters will be addressed.

Dattel begins his book with the argument that it “is about money and the uses and abuses of power” (ix). Cotton and race, in his estimation, were inextricably united in the antebellum United States: “Cotton offered potential wealth; black slavery solved the labor problem” (xi).

Given Dattel’s background in economics and finance, it is not surprising that the strongest parts of Cotton and Race are the sections that deal with the economics of cotton and slavery. Throughout, he offers quantitative evidence that indicates the importance of both cotton and slavery to the United States’ economic growth and the South’s continued employment of human bondage. For example, he outlines Great Britain’s growing dependence on southern cotton. In 1787, “Britain imported no cotton from the United States.” Twenty years later, the United States was providing Britain with a majority of its cotton imports, by 1840, the United States’ contribution to the British market was 81% (29-30, 37).

Cotton also affected other parts of the American economy. It drove land speculation, particularly in the 1830s, when, on the eve of the Panic of 1837, 20,074,871 acres of land were sold for $25,167,833 (43). These land acquisitions transformed the interior South in many ways. For example, Memphis, which only saw 300 bales of cotton enter its port in 1826, became “the largest inland cotton port” by 1860, with 400,000 bales passing through the city.

Chapters seven through ten (grouped together under the title, “The North, For Whites Only, 1800-1865″) do not hold together as well as the first six chapters. The chronology is jumbled, the geographic coverage is limited, and, at times, the analysis is superficial. For example, Chapter 8, titled “The Colonial North,” addresses only New York and Connecticut. The section on New York spends more time on the Civil War than on any other period. The second part of the chapter, on Connecticut, is better organized but still needed a clearer narrative. Chapter 9, in contrast, attempts to cover every western state but does so unevenly. Illinois and Ohio, for example, receive extensive treatment, but Oregon and California merit only a couple of paragraphs and Iowa only one. Perhaps I am being a nit-picky reviewer, but for these two chapters, I think a better strategy would have been either to try to cover all of the states adequately or to choose a couple of examples and do a comprehensive analysis of how they reflected broader geographic attitudes toward African Americans. Finally, Chapter 10 (“Tocqueville on Slavery, Race, and Money in America”) is a fine chapter on its own, but it does not fit with the organizational flow of the book.

These criticisms do not mean that I did not find the book interesting or useful. It gave me quantitative data that I can use in my classes or even my research, and it provoked thought about the economic relationship between cotton and race. Whatever its limitations (and every book has them), Cotton and Race is worth a read.

For more on the book, see Dattel’s presentation on C-Span’s BookTV, as well as reviews of the book on the Huffington Post and H-Environment websites.

Leave a comment | posted in Cotton, Gene Dattel, Old South, Slavery

29 October 2010

Review of Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South

By Mark R. Cheathem

Lacy K. Ford’s Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (Oxford Univ. Press, 2009) is a magnificent survey of the Jacksonian South’s struggle to reconcile itself with slavery. Actually, according to Ford, it was the Jacksonian Souths’ (Upper and Lower) struggle to reconcile themselves to slavery, as circumstances in the Early Republic called for reconsideration of whether white Americans should own black Americans.

Ford, an award-winning professor of history at the University of South Carolina, identifies three phases experienced by the South as slavery went from being considered a necessary evil to a positive good. The first was from the 1780s to 1808, when the Upper South paid mere lip service to ending slavery, while the Lower South became more enamored of the institution as cotton began to gain more importance. The second phase lasted from 1808 to the early 1830s. During these years, the Lower South looked to “lighten” itself by selling slaves further south. At the same time, Lower South whites acted ambivalently toward the internal slave trade, deploring the “blackening” of their states, yet needing the labor force to continue the profitability of the cotton empire as it spread westward. Finally, the remainder of the 1830s witnessed Upper and Lower South whites responding to the increasingly vocal abolitionist movement that emerged after Nat Turner’s rebellion (5).

This latter reaction produced different reactions among white southerners. Those living in the Upper South determined to continue the movement of slaves to the Lower South, while at the same time reconstructing their political institutions and revising their states’ constitutions to lessen or eliminate the influence of free blacks (359-360, 444-445). In the Lower South, religious leaders helped lead a reconfiguration that argued that racial differences predisposed African Americans to slavery; that African American slavery maintained white solidarity in the face of the class conflict unleashed by capitalism; and that paternalism was the best method of maintaining order in southern society. Paternalism particularly allowed southerners to justify a system of human bondage predicated on the responsibilities of both the owner and the owned to construct interlocked communities, starting at the plantation level, that created a region free from the upheavals of capitalism experienced by the North (508-509, 524-526).

My only criticisms of the book are minor. One is that there were a number of errors in the book’s footnotes (see especially pp. 583-584). Misspelled words and wrong book titles seem like obvious things that should have been caught during the copy-editing process, but, frankly, in a book of this size, copy-editing errors are going to get through. Secondly, and more substantively, I am not as convinced as Ford that “[r]ace mattered; little else did.” He goes on to argue, “This singular emphasis on racial difference . . . established race as the primary basis for social distinction, shoving character, wealth, education, and property ownership into the background” (532). I think this claim is far too simplistic in its explanatory power. Race was significant, of course, but the Jacksonian South was more complex than this one defining characteristic. Kinship networks, just to give one example, were extremely important in helping “men on the make” get ahead in society.

Undergraduate instructors will likely find this book challenging to use, although they might be able to assign certain chapters, such as the ones Nat Turner’s rebellion or the constitutional discussion in Tennessee in the 1830s, successfully to their students. Graduate students will undoubtedly find this book on their list of readings for comprehensive exams. Scholars of the Old South, Jacksonian America, and antebellum slavery will want to mull over the argument that Ford has made and consider particularly its ramifications for our understanding of southern paternalism.

You can read more about Lacy K. Ford’s book in his interview with Civil War Book Review.

Leave a comment | posted in Early Republic, Lacy K. Ford Jr., Old South, Slavery

25 October 2010

Books for Old South Class–Spring 2011

By Mark R. Cheathem

I’ve just completed selecting my books for the Southern U.S. History course that I’m teaching in the spring semester. This course is basically an Old South course, running chronologically from 1607-1860. I tried to select books that will give students brief overviews of important topics, as well different authorial perspectives.

Charles Dew, Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (Univ. of Virginia Press, 2001)

Comment: Dew’s book is useful in understanding the coordinated effort undertaken by pro-secession politicians following Lincoln’s election.

Paul Escott et al., Major Problems in the History of the American South: Documents and Essays, Vol. 1, 2d. ed. (Wadsworth, 1999)

Comment: A useful compendium of primary sources and scholarly essays. I wish a new edition were available, though.

Eugene Genovese, A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South (Univ. of Georgia Press, 1998)

Comment: A book by an historian whose views my students likely would not encounter otherwise. Gets at the religious angle in an interesting way.

Anya Jabour, Scarlett’s Sisters: Young Women in the Old South (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2007)

Comment: I haven’t read this book, but the reviews were good, and I liked Jabour’s book on the Wirt marriage.

Betty Wood, The Origins of American Slavery: Freedom and Bondage in the English Colonies (Hill & Wang, 1997)

Comment: Since some of my students have already read Winthrop Jordan’s The White Man’s Burden, I wanted to give them a different perspective.

In addition to these five books, I am also assigning two articles:

Edmund Morgan, “Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox.”

Comment: The most concise explanation of the Revolutionary Era’s paradoxical embrace of slavery and freedom.

C. Vann Woodward, “The Irony of Southern History.”

Comment: I had to include the essay that spawned my love of historical scholarship. It will be interesting to see how well the students think it holds up in light of its age.

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