West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental EmpireWhen 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 part: The struggle over slavery played out on a transcontinental stage. |
Other editions - View all
West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire Kevin Waite No preview available - 2021 |
West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire Kevin Waite No preview available - 2021 |
Common terms and phrases
2nd Sess abolitionist African Americans Alta California Angeles Anglo antebellum anti antislavery April argued Arizona bondpeople Broderick Calhoun Cali California Gold Rush camels campaign chattel Chinese Chivalry Civil Confederacy Confederate Cong Congress Continental South cotton Davis’s decade December Democratic Empire enslaved expansionists federal Gadsden Gadsden Purchase Globe Gold Rush Gwin’s Haight HEHL Hispano Indian James James Gadsden Jefferson Davis John Joseph Lancaster Joseph Lancaster Brent Kansas labor leaders legislature Lincoln Los Angeles Star March Mesilla Mexican Mexico military Mississippi Mormon Murrell Native northern Overland Mail Pacific railroad Papers Party peonage plantation planters political proslavery rebel rebellion Reconstruction region Republican route Sacramento Daily Union San Francisco secessionist sectional Senate Sibley’s slave code slaveholders slavery road slavery’s Smith Southern California Southwest state’s territory Texas Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson Green tion trade transcontinental transcontinental railroad unfree labor United Utah Utah’s West western white southerners William Gwin