West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire

David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

by Kevin Waite

When American slaveholders looked west in the mid-nineteenth century, they saw an empire unfolding before them. They pursued that vision through diplomacy, migration, and armed conquest. By the late 1850s, slaveholders and their allies had transformed the southwestern quarter of the nation – California, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Utah – into a political client of the plantation states. Across this vast swath of the map, white southerners defended the institution of African American chattel slavery as well as systems of Native American bondage. This surprising history uncovers the Old South in unexpected places, far beyond the region's cotton fields and sugar plantations. Slaveholders' western ambitions culminated in a coast-to-coast crisis of the Union. By 1861, the rebellion in the South inspired a series of separatist movements in the Far West. Even after the collapse of the Confederacy, the threads connecting South and West held, undermining the radical promise of Reconstruction. Kevin Waite brings to light what contemporaries recognized but historians have described only in The struggle over slavery played out on a transcontinental stage.

Genres: American History, History, American Civil War, Nonfiction, Civil War

381 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 19, 2021

Reviews

[William Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kevin Waite's West of Slavery does do a very good job of correcting misapprehensions of the extent of slavery in the United States during the years leading up to the Civil War and, indeed, for years afterwards. The practice, as the author capably demonstrates, was in no way restricted to the “slave states” of the southeast corner of the continent, and Waite goes on to show that numerous western territories as well as the state of California deserve a place in histories of the Civil War.

Slavery, whether in the form of chattel, economic peonage, or “adopted” Native American children, was prevalent and generally legalized by territorial governments in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and especially southern California. According to Waite, slaves labored in places that would not have readily occurred to me such as California gold mines and in the grain fields of slave-owning Mormons in San Bernardino. Most history books will point out that California had been admitted to the Union as a “free state” and that its constitution prohibited slavery, but that was a prohibition honored more in the breach than in the observance. As for the Arizona Territory, Waite cites no fewer than three conventions, each of which passed secession resolutions breaking ties with the Union even before Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina did so. While studying the Civil War, do you recall the Battle of Valverde? It was only the largest military confrontation in New Mexico's history to that point and saw Texas Confederate rebels defeat the U.S. Army, yet I cannot recall its inclusion in my school textbooks. Such facts are prominent in West of Slavery.

Waite also links quite a few seemingly unrelated historical developments to the South's desire to see its “peculiar institution” spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean: the desired southern route for the first transcontinental railroad, the Gadsden Purchase, the U.S. Camel Corps, and the Butterfield Overland Mail Road for example. Notably, these can all be found in most U.S. history books, but West of Slavery is the first one I've encountered to link them specifically to a desire to spread slavery across the continent, giving Southern cotton baron slavers ready access to Pacific as well as Atlantic trade routes.

In this smattering of examples, we can see that West of Slavery introduces the reader to quite a few historical events, primarily affecting the American southwest, that have not made it into most other U.S. history books. For that reason alone, the book is worth a read. Still, a few nits popped up here and there and I just have to pick them even though some may be admittedly rather minor. Still, I found them annoying:

I find the font a tad too small and the line spacing too compressed for pleasurable reading. Pages appear dense and crowded. All of the “footnotes” are, as usual in modern publishing, relegated to a section at the back of the book rather than appearing at the bottom of the page to which they apply. Some of those notes add additional information to the topic, but the reader misses that. No one is likely to page back and forth to the end of the book to consult a numbered note since doing so would thoroughly interrupt the reading of the text. Speaking of the notes, that section plus the bibliography and the index occupy no fewer than 124 pages of the 372 page book, fully one-third of it, an inordinate amount that leads one to wonder if West of Slavery began its life as a doctoral dissertation rather than an informative history for the reading public.

To continue with some nits, a few proofreading errors crop up here and there, things such as “This … was an raw deal” and “...create two or three additional slaves states....” Such appear to be typographical errors that should have been identified and corrected by a competent proofreader. I'm also not quite sure that the author uses the word axis accurately. On page 182, he states that “California was divided against itself along a north-south axis....” It was actually politically divided along an east-west axis, resulting in a northern portion above that axis and a southern portion below it.

Want a few more nits? Okay, here we go: On page 184, the reader is told that a unit of eighty Californian secessionists headed east on the Butterfield Overland Road, “transforming the antebellum mail route into a Confederate thoroughfare.” However, on pages 193 and 194, we learn that Confederate Colonel John Baylor “attempted to use the Overland Mail Road as a rebel thoroughfare.... To the Apaches, however, this was an old hunting trail, along which Anglos could move only with Native consent [and the Apaches] had killed more of Baylor's men than had federal armies.” It sounds to me as though the claimed transformation of the Overland Road into a Confederate thoroughfare was not quite as successful as was earlier stated? While exploring this apparent contradiction, I just noticed another proofreading failure: “federal armies.” In this usage, the word federal should be capitalized.

Not to end this more or less interminable review on a negative note, I did enjoy Waite's broadening his focus in the latter pages of the text to examine the “Lost Cause” myth fostered by the secessionist rebels, probably because my own public schooling took place in a part of the country that cleaved most tenaciously to that fiction, and I am pleased to see it once again exposed as the delusional fable it is. What is the “Lost Cause” myth? Here I am pleased to quote Waite on page 225: “They [Southern apologists] denied the central role of slavery in triggering secession; they blamed the war on abolitionists in the North rather than on fire-eaters in the South; they exalted the gallantry of the common Confederate soldier and the virtues of their commanders; they dismissed the Union victory as a nearly inevitable consequence of sheer numbers and resources; and they looked back nostalgically on the era of plantation slavery.”

In brief, I found West of Slavery to offer a novel approach to 19th Century U.S. history, specifically as it pertains to the issues of slavery, secession, and civil war. The nits I've picked are, by my own admission, generally minor. So why not five stars? The one thing I have not yet addressed put that fifth star out of reach and that is the style in which the book is written. Other historians have demonstrated that conveying factual history need not be dull, that the tone—let's call it the “voice” of the book—can be fascinating, resulting in a “page turner” as intriguing as a well-composed novel. Waite, unfortunately, does not achieve that level of readability. There is sparse inspiration to be found in the text, and often the reader must approach that text with a determination rather than an eagerness to read it. Nonetheless, I found the book to be worth the time devoted to its reading.

[Boyd Cothran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-researched, convincingly argued, and brilliant in its analysis, Kevin Waite has provided a compelling case for the importance of the West to our understand of the Civil War, its causes, course of events, and consequences. Waite does this by arguing that in the decades before to the Civil War began, slavery’s advocates and supporters were already in the process of expanding chattel slavery into the American southwest with an eye towards the west coast and the Pacific world beyond. And these efforts to establish a “Continental South,” Waite demonstrates, increased in their urgency and violence as the conflict developed and ultimately exploded into open warfare. That the Confederate States of America failed in their desire for a transpacific dominion does not diminish the importance of the attempt. In the lead-up to the Civil War, pro-slavery politicians and business men, Waite argues, “sought nothing less than a global web of cotton commerce, stretching from the docks of Liverpool in one direction to the trading houses of Canton in the other” (4). They did so through the canny manipulation of government subsidized western infrastructure, slave labor, and federal power throughout the 1840s and 1850s. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the Civil War or the history of the American West.

[Brenda Kochis · Rating 5 out of 5]

While many understand the issue of slavery to be primarily a southern phenomenon and the reason for the civil war, the west played a significant role even during the reconstruction. Southern CA, even reaching into the northern part of the state, the territories of NM and AZ, and Utah were critical players in the expansion and support of the south. This is an important part of our history. While not remarked upon in the press, it took the Black Lives issue to remove most of the confederate monuments that were all to common in California. A well written book that focuses on the role of the West in perpetuating the southern claim to slavery.

[Jason S · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great look at California and the southwest before during and after the civil war. Argues persuasively that California and the south west was part of a confederate vision of empire, including a way to sell cotton and avoid union blockade. Also looks at California politics and the role played by southerners even while the state constitution was against slavery. A very interesting work that expands views of the civil war and issues of coercive labor.

[David Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

We think of slavery as having been confined to the geographic southeast. Waite explores how the South dreamed of slavery from sea to shining sea, and how leaders embarked on several strategies in Western states to get there, including a southern mail route and a southern railroad, both ending in California, and pro-slavery laws passed by the transplanted Southerners who dominated Western legislatures. California, a secessionist hotbed? That certainly cuts against our image of our state.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kevin is the best lecturer ever ❤️

[Sandra Oldfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good look at the idea of the southern look to a transcontinental empire. I learned a great deal reading this book

[Mick Gaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This needs to be incorporated into the studies of western Reconstruction

[Tim Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! This book now requires that I update some of my lectures for the 19c survey. Grads really loved it.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Waite for my Unpacking 1619 Discussion group.

22 Professor Waite discusses his book, West of Slavery: the Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire. He explains his thesis that the Southern Slave States had ambitions and plans to extend slavery across the West. Prof. Waite explains how railroads, camels, and the hope for new international markets all played a part in the coming of the Civil War.

Check it out here