The Old Southwest 1795 1830

During the early years of the U.S. republic, its vital southwestern quadrant - encompassing the modern-day states between South Carolina and Louisiana - experienced nearly unceasing conflict. In The Old Southwest, 1795-1830: Frontiers in Conflict, historians Thomas D. Clark and John D. W. Guice analyze the many disputes that resulted when the United States pushed aside a hundred thousand Indians and overtook the final vestiges of Spanish, French, and British presence in the wilderness. Leaders such as Andrew Jackson, who emerged during the Creek War, introduced new policies of Indian removal and state making, along with a decided willingness to let adventurous settlers open up the new territories as a part of the Manifest Destiny of a growing country.

"In the years between 1795 and 1830, the vital southwestern quadrant of the young republic, encompassing the modern-day states between South Carolina and Louisiana, witnessed nearly unceasing conflict. Many of the disputes resulted from the United States pushing aside a hundred thousand Indians as well as overtaking the final vestiges of Spanish, French, and British presence in a wilderness Americans sought for its abundant pastureland, fertile soil, and forest products. Out of the expansion of the frontier to the Mississippi River emnerged leaders such as Andrew Jackson, policies like Indian Removal, and a willingness to let adventurous settlers open up a new territories as a part of the Manifest Destiny of a growing country. As this volume makes clear, an understanding of the history of the Old Southwest is important because events there foretold the nation's transcontinental expansion"--Bookjacket.

Mississippi’s foundational epoch—in which the state literally took shape—has for too long remained overlooked and shrouded in misunderstanding. Yet the years between 1798, when the Mississippi Territory was created, and 1840, when the maturing state came into its own as arguably the heart of the antebellum South, was one of remarkable transformation. Beginning as a Native American homeland subject to contested claims by European colonial powers, the state became a thoroughly American entity in the span of little more than a generation. In Old Southwest to Old South: Mississippi, 1798–1840, authors Mike Bunn and Clay Williams tell the story of Mississippi’s founding era in a sweeping narrative that gives these crucial years the attention they deserve. Several key themes, addressing how and why the state developed as it did, rise to the forefront in the book’s pages. These include a veritable list of the major issues in Mississippi history: a sudden influx of American settlers, the harsh saga of Removal, the pivotal role of the institution of slavery, and the consequences of heavy reliance on cotton production. The book bears witness to Mississippi’s birth as the twentieth state in the Union, and it introduces a cast of colorful characters and events that demand further attention from those interested in the state’s past. A story of relevance to all Mississippians, Old Southwest to Old South explains how Mississippi’s early development shaped the state and continues to define it today.

"For more than a quarter-century, despite the admirable excavations that have unearthed such humorists as John Gorman Barr and Marcus Lafayette, the most significant of the humorists from the Old Southwest have remained the same: Crockett, Longstreet, Thompson, Baldwin, Thorpe, Hooper, Robb, Harris, and Lewis. Forming a kind of shadow canon in American literature that led to Mark Twain's early work, from 1834 to 1867 these authors produced a body of writing that continues to reward attentive readers." "James H. Justus's Fetching the Old Southwest examines this writing in the context of other discourses contemporaneous with it: travel books, local histories, memoirs, and sports manuals, as well as unpublished private forms such as personal correspondence, daybooks, and journals. Like most writing, humor is a product of its place and time, and the works studied herein are no exception. The antebellum humorists provide an important look into the social and economic conditions that were prevalent in the southern "new country," a place that would, in time, become the Deep South." "While previous books about Old Southwest humor have focused on individual authors, Justus has produced the first critical study to encompass all of the humor from this time period. Teachers and students of literary history will appreciate the incredible range of documentation, both primary and secondary."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“A well-written, nicely comprehensive, and inclusive social history of Alabama before and immediately after statehood.”—H-AmIndian Alabama endured warfare, slave trading, squatting, and speculating on its path to becoming America’s twenty-second state, and Daniel S. Dupre brings its captivating frontier history to life in Alabama’s Frontiers and the Rise of the Old South. Dupre’s vivid narrative begins when Hernando de Soto first led hundreds of armed Europeans into the region during the fall of 1540. Although this early invasion was defeated, Spain, France, and England would each vie for control over the area’s natural resources, struggling to conquer it with the same intensity and ferocity that the Native Americans showed in defending their homeland. Although early frontiersmen and Native Americans eventually established an uneasy truce, the region spiraled back into war in the nineteenth century, as the newly formed American nation demanded more and more land for settlers. Dupre captures the riveting saga of the forgotten struggles and savagery in Alabama’s—and America’s—frontier days. “An introduction to the interaction of European powers, the United States, and Indian tribes in Alabama and the Southeast.”—Western Historical Quarterly

Frauchimastabe responded to shifting circumstances outside the Choctaw nation by pushing the source of authority in novel directions, straddling spiritual and economic power in a way unfathomable to Taboca."--BOOK JACKET.

The story of the American Civil War is typically told with particular interest in the national players behind the war: Davis, Lincoln, Lee, Grant, and their peers. However, the truth is that countless Americans on both sides of the war worked in their own communities to sway public perception of abolition, secession, and government intervention. In north Alabama, David Hubbard was an ardent and influential voice for leaving the Union, spreading his increasingly radical view of states' rights and the need to rebel against what he viewed an overreaching federal government. You have likely never heard of Hubbard, the grandson of a Revolutionary War soldier who fought under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. He was much more than that stereotype of antebellum Alabama politicians, being an early speculator in lands coerced from Native Americans; a lawyer and cotton planter; a populist; an influential member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama; and a key promoter of the very first railroad built west of the Allegheny mountains. Alabama's Forgotten Fire Eater is the story of Hubbard's radicalization, describing his rise to becoming the most influential and prominent secessionist in north Alabama. Despite growing historical interest in the "fire eaters" who whipped the South into a frenzy, there has been little mention until now of Hubbard's integral involvement in Alabama's relationship with the Confederacy. Now historian Chris McIlwain offers Hubbard's story as a cautionary tale of radical politics and its consequences.

Between 1815 and 1861, American slaveholders and southern Italian landowners presided over the economic and social life of two predominantly agricultural regions, the U.S. South and Italy's Mezzogiorno. Enrico Dal Lago ingeniously compares these agrarian elites, demonstrating how the study of each enhances our understanding of the other as well as of their shared nineteenth-century world. Agrarian Elites charts the parallel developments of plantations and latifondi in relation to changes in the world economy. At the same time, it examines the spread of "paternalistic" models of family relations and of slave and free-labor management that accompanied the rise of large groups of American slaveholders and southern Italian landed proprietors in the early-to-mid-1800s. According to Dal Lago, the most articulate and enlightened members of both elites combined the pursuit of profit with the implementation of "modern" contractual practices in dealing with their workforces. Both elites also used their economic and social power for political advantage, opposing the intervention of their national governments in local affairs. The search for ever-better protection of their respective interests in slaveholding and landed property led ultimately to their support for the creation of two nations, the Confederate States of America and the Kingdom of Italy, both in 1861.Dal Lago brings together two subjects that have generated considerable debate and research: systems of slave and nominally free labor and the elites who employed them, and nineteenth-century nationalism. With its pathbreaking approach and singular and comparative insights, Agrarian Elites will inform not only American and Italian studies but also the very practice of comparative history.