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Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South
Slave Country tells the tragic story of the expansion of slavery in the new United States. In the wake of the American Revolution, slavery gradually disappeared from the northern states and the importation of captive Africans was prohibited. Yet, at the same time, the country's slave population grew, new plantation crops appeared, and several new slave states joined the Union. Adam Rothman explores how slavery flourished in a new nation dedicated to the principle of equality among free men, and reveals the enormous consequences of U.S. expansion into the region that became the Deep South.
Rothman maps the combination of transatlantic capitalism and American nationalism that provoked a massive forced migration of slaves into Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. He tells the fascinating story of collaboration and conflict among the diverse European, African, and indigenous peoples who inhabited the Deep South during the Jeffersonian era, and who turned the region into the most dynamic slave system of the Atlantic world. Paying close attention to dramatic episodes of resistance, rebellion, and war, Rothman exposes the terrible violence that haunted the Jeffersonian vision of republican expansion across the American continent.
Slave Country combines political, economic, military, and social history in an elegant narrative that illuminates the perilous relation between freedom and slavery in the early United States. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in an honest look at America's troubled past.
Rothman maps the combination of transatlantic capitalism and American nationalism that provoked a massive forced migration of slaves into Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. He tells the fascinating story of collaboration and conflict among the diverse European, African, and indigenous peoples who inhabited the Deep South during the Jeffersonian era, and who turned the region into the most dynamic slave system of the Atlantic world. Paying close attention to dramatic episodes of resistance, rebellion, and war, Rothman exposes the terrible violence that haunted the Jeffersonian vision of republican expansion across the American continent.
Slave Country combines political, economic, military, and social history in an elegant narrative that illuminates the perilous relation between freedom and slavery in the early United States. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in an honest look at America's troubled past.
312 pages, Paperback
First published April 25, 2005
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249 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 25, 2024
Interesting! Read it in 2 days though because I didn't realize I needed to do it for class...
October 30, 2017
How slavery changed the shape of the nation in the early republic, up until about 1830. Great insights on how capitalism and globalization played a role in slavery's move from the upper south and into the Deep South, and how all of these forces shaped the newer Deep South states.
October 16, 2017
Why, despite Jefferson's belief that slavery would eventually die a natural, organic death, did slavery nonetheless expand and then become entrenched?
Adam Rothman argues that it's a combination of global economic and diplomatic factors that turned the Southwest into prime cotton-producing and sugar-producing territory at the edge of the modern, Atlantic economy-- and subsequently, the United States into "slave country."
Rothman has a very acute sense of all of the movable parts, not just internationally, but on the ground in the Southwest. Slavery not only affects everything it touches, but it complicates everything it touches-- take, for example, native-white relations when they involve the developing domestic slave market and runaway slaves. His book is solid on the diplomatic stakes, and offers food for thought regarding African American military history during the War of 1812. It's a good book to be read in conjunction with the likes of newer work like Edward Baptist, "The Half Has Never Been Told" and Walter Johnson, "River of Dark Dreams."
Adam Rothman argues that it's a combination of global economic and diplomatic factors that turned the Southwest into prime cotton-producing and sugar-producing territory at the edge of the modern, Atlantic economy-- and subsequently, the United States into "slave country."
Rothman has a very acute sense of all of the movable parts, not just internationally, but on the ground in the Southwest. Slavery not only affects everything it touches, but it complicates everything it touches-- take, for example, native-white relations when they involve the developing domestic slave market and runaway slaves. His book is solid on the diplomatic stakes, and offers food for thought regarding African American military history during the War of 1812. It's a good book to be read in conjunction with the likes of newer work like Edward Baptist, "The Half Has Never Been Told" and Walter Johnson, "River of Dark Dreams."
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October 1, 2020Some books are bombshells: bold new theses that assert a new direction in the historiography by directly challenging others. Other books are bricks in the wall: patiently building up the knowledge we have with a deeper narrative understanding of events, upon which everything else rests; less interesting for their main theses than for their patient attention to telling details and the complexities thereof. Adam Rothman's "Slave Country" is a brick in a bomb-factory - an account of the creation of the Cotton South clearly written within the broad contours of a New History of Capitalism lens, and one less interested in defining or defending those contours than filling them in with an understanding of the period and its characters. If NHC historiography were dominant and uncontested (and someday it may be, for a time,) this is the sort of thing that could be regarded as dully un-ideological, much as Dad History biographies of the framers are to the general public if not historians. But as with well-done Dad History, the details here are interesting.
Rothman gets to these details through what seems like a truly herculean swim through written sources of all types - editorials, diaries, court records, manifestos, and so on. (If we see a lot of material about people personally connected to either Thomas Jefferson or, especially, Andrew Jackson, well, that reflects what kinds of material has been well-preserved, and possibly what archives Rothman was able to procure an extended stay at.) If this breadth weakens, in some way, his implicit arguments about what the mood was around money, race, and war in the burgeoning Deep South - perhaps he's just cherry-picking the data? - it gives us a wonderful cross-section of the period and region through the eyes of soldiers, slaves, sailors, speculators, planters, and politicians.
One thing that becomes clear throughout the book is the constant level of miltiary mobilization that's necessary, even outside of formal war with the British. Slave populations necessarily require militia on war footing, because major slave rebellions can break out at any moment (one of which is extensively described here.) And Jeffersonian hopes of a sort of Coasian solution with Creek, Choctaw, and Chicasaw polities - that their adoption of agriculture and commerce would induce them to sell off excess land to USian settlers - was confounded, "requiring" war to clear them out even as the previous inhabitants indeed adopted the same mass enslavement-based economic models as the settlers themselves. War or just a shared border with foreigners - Creek, British, Spanish, whatever - created constant tension of how invasion and slave rebellion might interact with each other.
It's also very clear here how fears of slave rebellion interacted with attitudes towards free blacks. Planters were afraid that free blacks would infect enslaved ones, with, basically, the idea that they could be anything but; this extended both to those who had won their freedom domestically (and restrictions were placed on the rights of owners to emancipate their slaves, a telling breach of law that otherwise prioritized ultimate right of disposal) and to imported slaves with the wrong backgrounds (especially of course from Haiti.) Immediate material interests constantly were in friction against these - would Louisiana respond favorably to petitions by free black men to serve in its militia or not? (They would, but they had to be landowners in "good social standing" and be led by whites.) Would new slaves be imported from the Caribbean? (Yes, but illegally.) How far could the "imbalance" between white and black populations be extended? Again and again slaveowners faced a sort of collective action problem - because they all lived in fear of a generalized slave rebellion, they required but were constantly tempted away from measures that would sacrifice profit to the sustainability of the system as a whole.
Like mass enslavement itself, Christianity takes on contradictory contours. A further prop that was necessary for the survival of slavery was the adoption of a more paternalist ideology, which seems to have only incoherently expressed in most of this period; evangalization of the enslaved population was simultaneously necessary and dangerous, especially when it lent itself to creative misinterpretation by the new flock. As Eugene Genovese argued in Roll, Jordan, Roll, this presented both accomplishments and relinquishments on behalf of the slaves, for whom humanitarian discourse, consecrated marriages, and sometimes-access to the Bible provided leverage points that could be used to negotiate for themselves, at the price of surrendering hegemony. But many of them go further than that, with enslaved preachers coming up with their own theologies that planters worried, extensively, over.
All in all, a brick in the wall, but a handsome and well-laid one.
Rothman gets to these details through what seems like a truly herculean swim through written sources of all types - editorials, diaries, court records, manifestos, and so on. (If we see a lot of material about people personally connected to either Thomas Jefferson or, especially, Andrew Jackson, well, that reflects what kinds of material has been well-preserved, and possibly what archives Rothman was able to procure an extended stay at.) If this breadth weakens, in some way, his implicit arguments about what the mood was around money, race, and war in the burgeoning Deep South - perhaps he's just cherry-picking the data? - it gives us a wonderful cross-section of the period and region through the eyes of soldiers, slaves, sailors, speculators, planters, and politicians.
One thing that becomes clear throughout the book is the constant level of miltiary mobilization that's necessary, even outside of formal war with the British. Slave populations necessarily require militia on war footing, because major slave rebellions can break out at any moment (one of which is extensively described here.) And Jeffersonian hopes of a sort of Coasian solution with Creek, Choctaw, and Chicasaw polities - that their adoption of agriculture and commerce would induce them to sell off excess land to USian settlers - was confounded, "requiring" war to clear them out even as the previous inhabitants indeed adopted the same mass enslavement-based economic models as the settlers themselves. War or just a shared border with foreigners - Creek, British, Spanish, whatever - created constant tension of how invasion and slave rebellion might interact with each other.
It's also very clear here how fears of slave rebellion interacted with attitudes towards free blacks. Planters were afraid that free blacks would infect enslaved ones, with, basically, the idea that they could be anything but; this extended both to those who had won their freedom domestically (and restrictions were placed on the rights of owners to emancipate their slaves, a telling breach of law that otherwise prioritized ultimate right of disposal) and to imported slaves with the wrong backgrounds (especially of course from Haiti.) Immediate material interests constantly were in friction against these - would Louisiana respond favorably to petitions by free black men to serve in its militia or not? (They would, but they had to be landowners in "good social standing" and be led by whites.) Would new slaves be imported from the Caribbean? (Yes, but illegally.) How far could the "imbalance" between white and black populations be extended? Again and again slaveowners faced a sort of collective action problem - because they all lived in fear of a generalized slave rebellion, they required but were constantly tempted away from measures that would sacrifice profit to the sustainability of the system as a whole.
Like mass enslavement itself, Christianity takes on contradictory contours. A further prop that was necessary for the survival of slavery was the adoption of a more paternalist ideology, which seems to have only incoherently expressed in most of this period; evangalization of the enslaved population was simultaneously necessary and dangerous, especially when it lent itself to creative misinterpretation by the new flock. As Eugene Genovese argued in Roll, Jordan, Roll, this presented both accomplishments and relinquishments on behalf of the slaves, for whom humanitarian discourse, consecrated marriages, and sometimes-access to the Bible provided leverage points that could be used to negotiate for themselves, at the price of surrendering hegemony. But many of them go further than that, with enslaved preachers coming up with their own theologies that planters worried, extensively, over.
All in all, a brick in the wall, but a handsome and well-laid one.
October 4, 2019
In Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South, Adam Rothman argues that the expansion of slavery in the early national United States germinated from the institution’s emergence and domination over the Deep South. The expansion of slavery into the United States’ most southern borders and its legal sanctioning contributed toward the young nation’s evolution from scattered “slave societies” to a cohesive “slave country.” America’s transition to a “slave country” founded itself upon an inextricable linkage between slavery and individual freedom. Rothman follows this line of reasoning through key events and movements that concretized slavery’s dominion over the Deep South. He explores this marriage between slavery and notions of individual freedom through the nation’s territorial expansion in the late eighteenth century, the development of plantation economies based on cotton and sugar, and the role of success warfare to the “material and ideological support to the expansion of slavery in the subsequent generation” (220).
On a purely stylistic note, I found Rothman’s writing to be strikingly clear, yet poetic. He has a knack for balancing profundity with brevity. Paired with his writing style, I found his argumentative frameworks—chiefly his adoption of the term “slave country” and his deployment of Jefferson’s “American vista”—particularly powerful for analyzing the Deep South’s unfolding. First, I thought his adaptation of the “society with slaves” vs. “slave society” schema commonly associated with Ira Berlin’s work Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America extremely useful in considering the new nation’s eventual relationship with the institution. Rothman conveys to his readers that the government support and economic success of these “slave societies” in the Orleans and Mississippi territory led to America’s becoming a “slave country.” An important tangent, Berlin’s definition of a “slave society” hinges on not only the economic weight of slavery, but its social and political hegemony as well. He describes how certain regions in early America—the “slave societies”—witnessed the formation of an elite master class who withheld most of the region’s wealth and controlled its polity.
Juxtaposing the rise of the master class alongside Jefferson’s “American vista” makes Rothman’s argument all the more convincing. Rothman explains, “The Jeffersonian ideal of a society dominated by yeoman farmers was not realized…When the land finally did come to market, wealthy planters rather than yeoman farmers got the best of it…” (70). In other words, the emergence of a wealthy planter master class took for granted yet came at the expense of Jefferson’s “American vista.” I found myself fascinated by (what I may incorrectly define as) the dialectical relationship between Jefferson’s diffusionist, homogeneous, yeoman vision and the elite and culturally diverse reality of the slave country. Fueled by Democratic Republican ideals, the slave country seems to have evolved into something altogether different, but not entirely at odds with the Jeffersonian notions of freedom that launched its becoming.
On a purely stylistic note, I found Rothman’s writing to be strikingly clear, yet poetic. He has a knack for balancing profundity with brevity. Paired with his writing style, I found his argumentative frameworks—chiefly his adoption of the term “slave country” and his deployment of Jefferson’s “American vista”—particularly powerful for analyzing the Deep South’s unfolding. First, I thought his adaptation of the “society with slaves” vs. “slave society” schema commonly associated with Ira Berlin’s work Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America extremely useful in considering the new nation’s eventual relationship with the institution. Rothman conveys to his readers that the government support and economic success of these “slave societies” in the Orleans and Mississippi territory led to America’s becoming a “slave country.” An important tangent, Berlin’s definition of a “slave society” hinges on not only the economic weight of slavery, but its social and political hegemony as well. He describes how certain regions in early America—the “slave societies”—witnessed the formation of an elite master class who withheld most of the region’s wealth and controlled its polity.
Juxtaposing the rise of the master class alongside Jefferson’s “American vista” makes Rothman’s argument all the more convincing. Rothman explains, “The Jeffersonian ideal of a society dominated by yeoman farmers was not realized…When the land finally did come to market, wealthy planters rather than yeoman farmers got the best of it…” (70). In other words, the emergence of a wealthy planter master class took for granted yet came at the expense of Jefferson’s “American vista.” I found myself fascinated by (what I may incorrectly define as) the dialectical relationship between Jefferson’s diffusionist, homogeneous, yeoman vision and the elite and culturally diverse reality of the slave country. Fueled by Democratic Republican ideals, the slave country seems to have evolved into something altogether different, but not entirely at odds with the Jeffersonian notions of freedom that launched its becoming.
December 16, 2020
As noted in the blurb and by many others, "This book is essential reading for anyone interested in an honest look at America's troubled past." 'Nuff said. In 2020, we seem doomed to repeat ALL of our history's painful lessons, as we've obviously [and astonishingly] learned nothing from our deeply flawed past.
October 11, 2017
it took me 2 weeks to read this book & I have no idea what, precisely, it is about
June 2, 2022
2.5 >:( had to read for class
May 6, 2024
Okay. A little boring, but was interesting/upsetting stuff. I was more into the parts that mentioned South Carolina, obviously. Again, in-class discussions reinforced the book's information.
March 5, 2017
Great book on how the deep south was born, and how it could have gone other ways. Rothman covers a lot of events covered by others, but his focus on the origins of the Cotton Belt are the true contribution. His question: why did slavery expand in the early US? Thesis: contingent global forces (demand for sugar/cotton), and series of contingent small choices over time. Those are laid out in the book.
Rothman really digs into the diffusionist vision of Jefferson and others that is so overlooked. The plan was to allow slaveowners to bring their slaves with them, but not to sell. This way the slave population east would be spread out, releasing tension there and speeding up natural emancipation. Although it's not as big a part of the book as I would have liked, potential for sugar/cotton in the region destroys that. A turning part of the book is post-War of 1812. Creeks are cleared from the land, and price of exportable commodities like cotton creates condition for a "slave country." Slaves weren't really efficient, as can be seen after the war, but settlers were pretty firm, even immigrants from New England, that slaves were naturally better conditioned for the climate and needed as quick labor to develop the region, and country. Rothman, without explicitly saying it, attributes the perpetuation of slavery to path dependency. It was just easier at the time to keep the old system. [200-5] Another crucial element was that land in the Deep South was open to public sale. So people who were rich/had connections bought up all the good land quickly, leaving poor white yeomen out of the picture. A comparison with the NW Territory would have been nice. Anti-slavery people/diffusionists allow this public land grab because the Federal Gov't wanted the revenues bad, and wanted the region developed quickly. This class of planters then monopolize state government, protecting slavery and targeting poor whites/free slaves.
Rothman really digs into the diffusionist vision of Jefferson and others that is so overlooked. The plan was to allow slaveowners to bring their slaves with them, but not to sell. This way the slave population east would be spread out, releasing tension there and speeding up natural emancipation. Although it's not as big a part of the book as I would have liked, potential for sugar/cotton in the region destroys that. A turning part of the book is post-War of 1812. Creeks are cleared from the land, and price of exportable commodities like cotton creates condition for a "slave country." Slaves weren't really efficient, as can be seen after the war, but settlers were pretty firm, even immigrants from New England, that slaves were naturally better conditioned for the climate and needed as quick labor to develop the region, and country. Rothman, without explicitly saying it, attributes the perpetuation of slavery to path dependency. It was just easier at the time to keep the old system. [200-5] Another crucial element was that land in the Deep South was open to public sale. So people who were rich/had connections bought up all the good land quickly, leaving poor white yeomen out of the picture. A comparison with the NW Territory would have been nice. Anti-slavery people/diffusionists allow this public land grab because the Federal Gov't wanted the revenues bad, and wanted the region developed quickly. This class of planters then monopolize state government, protecting slavery and targeting poor whites/free slaves.
December 29, 2009
As Rothman states in his introduction, “During the republic, slavery’s expansion in the Deep South emerged from contingent global forces, concrete policies pursued by governments, and countless small choices made by thousands of individuals in diverse stations of life.” The question of why and how slavery expanded after the revolution has yet to be answered. Most Americans consider slavery an embarrassment and many feel it unrealistic to question why slavery was not abolished in a post-revolutionary time of independence and achievement. Rothman approaches those issues to explain why slavery was not abolished and why it expanded in the republic.
Rothman uses a variety of good primary source documents for his research and evidence: American State Papers; census and population data and statistics; newspapers; memorials; estate inventories; personal letters and papers; journals and memoirs; public documents and declarations; and legal documents such as petitions, laws, and affidavits. For secondary sources, Rothman consulted a number of journal articles, books, and dissertations that explore topics such as, but not limited to, the rationale of expansion, slaves and slavery, biography on politicians and plantation owners, and international relations. They all contribute appropriately to the book, and all seem to be sound documents and sources.
What I liked best about this book is that it is very complete in the information that it gives. Rothman approaches a complex topic, with many various factors, influences, and causes/effects, and gives readers an in depth view into the expansion of slavery. Rather than be very broad and general, Rothman is full of detail and history to explain its rooting. He gives details and connects it all together in an intricate weave that is still easy to grasp and understand, and makes you understand the true complexity of slavery’s expansion. What I feel hurt the book, though, is that there is a lot of date jumping back and forth. As a result, I found it difficult to keep up with at times and had some difficulty keeping things within a proper mental timeline. Another is that he frequently inserts things happening with Native Americans and places them within the context of slavery, a few times finding rationales that are very loose. While it makes sense to evaluate the impact of Native American slave holders, the book loses focus a few times when there is no direct or important correlation.
If you have ever wanted to take a deeper look into slavery, to ask and then answer the question of how American culture, economy, and politics evolved in such a way as to encourage the institution of slavery, this will be a great book to read. So often we take slavery for granted in the sense that “it was here and it existed,” but its origins are far more complex and layered, full of back and forth, supporters and dissenters, and part of a shifting nation that encouraged freedom while at the same time strengthening the bondage of others.
Rothman uses a variety of good primary source documents for his research and evidence: American State Papers; census and population data and statistics; newspapers; memorials; estate inventories; personal letters and papers; journals and memoirs; public documents and declarations; and legal documents such as petitions, laws, and affidavits. For secondary sources, Rothman consulted a number of journal articles, books, and dissertations that explore topics such as, but not limited to, the rationale of expansion, slaves and slavery, biography on politicians and plantation owners, and international relations. They all contribute appropriately to the book, and all seem to be sound documents and sources.
What I liked best about this book is that it is very complete in the information that it gives. Rothman approaches a complex topic, with many various factors, influences, and causes/effects, and gives readers an in depth view into the expansion of slavery. Rather than be very broad and general, Rothman is full of detail and history to explain its rooting. He gives details and connects it all together in an intricate weave that is still easy to grasp and understand, and makes you understand the true complexity of slavery’s expansion. What I feel hurt the book, though, is that there is a lot of date jumping back and forth. As a result, I found it difficult to keep up with at times and had some difficulty keeping things within a proper mental timeline. Another is that he frequently inserts things happening with Native Americans and places them within the context of slavery, a few times finding rationales that are very loose. While it makes sense to evaluate the impact of Native American slave holders, the book loses focus a few times when there is no direct or important correlation.
If you have ever wanted to take a deeper look into slavery, to ask and then answer the question of how American culture, economy, and politics evolved in such a way as to encourage the institution of slavery, this will be a great book to read. So often we take slavery for granted in the sense that “it was here and it existed,” but its origins are far more complex and layered, full of back and forth, supporters and dissenters, and part of a shifting nation that encouraged freedom while at the same time strengthening the bondage of others.
May 5, 2015
Terrific study of post-revolutionary plantation labor, the connection to the war of 1812, removal of Native Americans, and more. I really wasn't sure what to expect when I picked it up, but it turned out to be one of my favorite books on the American South. Loved it.
February 1, 2016
Well-written interesting book about the role of slavery in the expansion of the US into what is now Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. No new earth-shattering thesis, but an enjoyable read with a good deal of support.
February 15, 2024
A interesting look into how the deep south became the heart of what is thought of in American slavery
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