wirobertson – U.S. to 1877

December 3, 2013

The Lost Meaning

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In Davis’ coverage of the Civil War and its aftermath, the shift away from acknowledging slavery as the causation of the war struck me the most. At the outset, the war undoubtably resulted from the South reacting to preserve its lucrative institution. In the years following, southerners abandoned this and focused on the alleged peaceful, harmonious antebellum South. Davis’ claim that, “slavery was ‘in no wise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident'” (Davis 304), revealed the ridiculous reversal of Southerners following the war. Sadly, racism allowed for this rhetoric to persist, and Americans “struggled to preserve the revolutionary or ’emancipationist’ meaning of the Civil War” (305).

Davis began by describing incredible elation of the freed slaves and followed that by detailing the unfortunate lack of consideration they experienced after the war. This framework really drove home how Americans suppressed a lot of the revolutionary aspects of the war. JANEWTON wrote, “Another reason it was deemed a good war is that the North didn’t unleash ‘full vengeance’ on the states that had seceded and kept blacks from taking over parts of the south” (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/author/janewton/). While the North’s forgivingness aided the peaceful reconciliation between the sections, its “willingness to give Southern whites a free hand in defining and presiding over all racial policies” (Davis 300), substantially reduced blacks’ roles in society for decades.

When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, he made the war one against slavery and racial inequality. Unfortunately, this meaning lost influence during the years following the war. Racism permeated the entire country, and the majority of whites were unready to coexist with such a large population of free blacks. Nonetheless, I found it remarkable that such strong tensions and hatred existed in this country for so long after such a revolutionary war.

December 2, 2013

Election of 1860 and Secession

The topic of slavery dominated politics during the mid-19th Century. It divided social classes, political parties, and most importantly the North and the South. Adamant on maintain slavery’s presence and expansion, Southerners repeatedly threatened seceding from the United States for decades. Beginning in late 1860, shockingly soon after the election of Abraham Lincoln, this threat became a reality, as South Carolina seceded, and several other states soon followed suit. In this post I will attempt to answer ANBURTON’s question (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/secession-becomes-a-reality/), “[Was] secession an inevitable result of the presidential turnover, or was it really due to Lincoln’s particular election?” Also, I will explore the factors causing the South to secede.

I do think Lincoln’s election directly caused the immediate secession of the South. This decision, however, seemed overly radical, especially considering Lincoln’s moderate nature. Lincoln firmly believed that the spread of slavery needed to halt, but he never threatened altering the institution where it already existed. In addition, he did not support radical abolitionists, such as John Brown (Fun Fact: Today is the 154th anniversary of his execution). The South’s severe opposition to Lincoln struck me as greedy, as his election did not threaten slaveholders’ social structure at home, only their long-enjoyed national dominance in politics. The reaction also may have resulted from misinformation about Lincoln’s positions. Other candidates certainly tried to damage Lincoln’s campaign by attributing radical ideals to him. Furthermore, I suspected that fire-eaters manipulated the public into believing that Lincoln posed a direct threat to the entire institution of slavery. The fact that southern fire-eaters enjoyed Lincoln’s victory provided evidence, “No less pleased, though, were the southern fire-eaters … southern militants took the next step toward creating their slaveholders’ republic” (Wilentz 434). Clearly the South made a regrettable decision by seceding from the Union. Whether the reaction resulted from a greedy attempt to preserve widespread dominance, or from misinformation about Lincoln’s moderation, the election of Lincoln certainly ignited the amount of panic necessary to end in secession.

I really enjoyed and appreciated Wilentz’s coverage of the election of 1860 and secession. I found his treatment of the topic thorough, interesting, and easy to follow.

November 20, 2013

Antebellum Southern Stubbornness

The decade leading up to the Civil War featured tenacious animosity between politicians. Southern proslavery figures constantly butted heads with their Northern counterparts, and politicians pushing for compromise had extremely limited success in appeasing both groups. In both Davis’s and Wilentz’s accounts, slavery legislation seemed to favor the South. The North appeared willing to allow slavery to continue where it already existed and simply wanted to slow or halt its expansion. The proslavery South, however, never seemed satisfied and continually pleaded for more slavery. The repeated threat of disunion revealed excessive Southern discontent and lack of adaptability.

The South came out of the Missouri Crisis with Missouri as a slave state and even maintained the possibility of more slave states in the future despite growing criticism of the institution. This criticism was even limited by the proslavery gag rule. Nonetheless, the South kept battling for more slave states, best evidenced by the blatant disregard for the Missouri compromise in the debate of Kansas’s status. David Brion Davis provided a hilarious consequence of overly aggressive pursuits for more slave influence by Jefferson Davis. Jefferson Davis’ push for “federal protection of slave property” alienated the North and split the Democratic party (293). This split allowed for Southerners’ worst nightmare to come true as Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election as the first outspoken opponent to slavery.

Southern resistance to popular sovereignty, essentially the only proposed compromise, marked the South as more stubborn. In addition, no Northern legislature prior to 1860 infringed on slaveholders’ right to own slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act, however, significantly affected and altered lives of antislavery proponents in the North. It was no surprise that this Act stirred up the strongest opposition, as it inherently imposed Southern ideals in the North. Not to mention its inhumane principles. The North seemed much more open to compromise, but this policy clearly crossed the line.

The South came off as ungrateful and greedy in antebellum politics. It had enjoyed prolonged dominance and still maintained its most prized possession, slavery. Whether its vigor stemmed from Anglophobia, as WEKING suggests (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/a-great-experiment-british-abolition-and-southern-paranoia/), racism, or sheer greed, the South should have been content with the continuation of such a controversial and widely hated practice.

November 18, 2013

White Laborers’ Fear

David Roediger recounted the rise of slavery comparison in the rhetoric of dissatisfied white workers during the 1830s and 1840s. The anxiety experienced by oppressed white laborers shared a close linkage with the increasing attention paid to abolition in this time period. Interestingly, the same laborers who fought against what they considered “White Slavery” (Roediger) argued for enslaving blacks. Only fear can explain such a striking hypocrisy.

In their attempts to gain more rights, white laborers compared their situation to Southern slavery, and even went as far as to claim their situation was worse than slavery (349). Embedded in their rhetoric were the paternalistic views of slavery employed by Southern slaveholders. As Roediger pointed out, “Chattel slavery stood as the ultimate expression of denial of liberty” (343). Clearly, whites must have felt severe oppression in order to draw this comparison.

White laborers demands for freedom from a system they likened to slavery notably did not extend to actual slaves. Their proslavery view stemmed from a fear of replacing or being replaced by African-American slaves. Abolition threatened the job market for poor white workers. In addition, it challenged the inherent sense of superiority felt by whites. As ALKAROUT mentioned in her post on 9/18, colonial whites “forged … a sense of racial pride” to unite planters and common men against slaves. Roediger addressed “the continuing desire not to be considered anything like an African-American” (344-345). Fear of equality with blacks was a longstanding concern for lower class whites, explaining their hypocritical proslavery stance.

Dee Dee Joyce observed the same fears and proslavery responses among Irish-Americans in the South. The Irish wholeheartedly served the Confederacy during the civil war. This support for the Confederacy does not indicate Irish support for the practice of slavery itself, but rather the protection of their identity and inclusion in society. Shaped by a history of marginalization, Irish-Americans desperately longed for inclusion and a sense of superiority, and maintaining slavery offered the best way to attain these goals.

Both works revealed an interesting perspective on both workers’ rights and abolition. In addition, they both demonstrated the complex ties every social group had to the institution of slavery.

November 10, 2013

Dishevelled Democracy

Chapters 14 through 16 in Wilentz explored the chaotic politics prevalent during Andrew Jackson’s second term and Martin Van Buren’s term as president. This era featured numerous pressing political issues and resulted in remarkable shifts in the political landscape. The tension also created significant divides both between and within political parties. The Democrats efforts to attract nationwide appeal led to catastrophic contradictions, and the Whig’s hatred for Jackson provided only an ephemeral glue to hold together members with sharply different ideologies.

In its effort to appease voters from all areas and walks of life, the Democratic party under Jackson and Van Buren featured striking hypocrisies. The most obvious example, the gag rule, challenged its most fundamental principle: preserving equal rights and the true meaning of the Constitution. Like MASPEED (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/november-5th-post/), I was shocked at the gag rule’s blatant disregard for substantial Constitutional ideals, as it solely served to appease Jackson’s slaveholding constituency in the South. Not surprisingly, contradictions in policies such as this one resulted in factions within the Democratic party, as divides within the Democratic party manifested themselves more than ever.

Grounded solely in their opposition to Jackson, members of the Whig party had various disagreements threatening their unity. Most notably, the Whigs consisted of the most adamant abolitionists alongside many wealthy Southern slaveholders. Clearly, this recipe for disaster could not last for long. The lack of organization and unity rendered the party unsuccessful initially in national elections, most importantly the 1836 presidential race. The Whigs, however, impressively consolidated forces prior to their victory in the 1840 election with William Henry Harrison. The triumph delayed inevitable doom for the divided party.

I found Wilentz’s treatment of the various political struggles to be discombobulating. I had difficulty in identifying which party, faction, or politician supported each side. I felt the narration of the Whigs’ consolidation and democratization in Chapter 16 was particularly fascinating and well-framed. Overall, despite the headache I got sorting through the issues, Wilentz did a fairly nice job of investigating the crazy politics of the 1830’s.

October 2, 2013

Paranoia in the Pacific

Taylor began his assessment of the west in a unique fashion: focusing on Russian imperialism in Alaska. Despite initial intent to “acquire them [native peoples] through kindness,” (448) Russian colonists (promyshlenniki) tremendously mistreated and disrespected the native peoples. The disrespect was particularly unfounded, as the Aleut people were talented and innovative, aptly demonstrated by the baidarka, a small boat which facilitated fishing. Despite the skills of these people, they were vulnerable when it came to dealing with firearms, and the Russians ruthlessly exploited and intimidated them. However, Taylor’s main reason to include Russia in his narrative was to provide a frame for the geographical anxiety felt by the Spanish. Taylor noted that Russia’s population consisted of only 400 members in 1800 (456), and considering the vast distance between them and the Spanish, the Spanish took preventative action to secure the Pacific.

The Spanish first explored California’s coast during the middle of the 16th century (456); however, factors such as the apparent lack of mineral wealth and the distance and difficulty in accessing it led to minimal Spanish interest in the land. This changed in 1768 due to misleading reports of Russian and British encroachment (457). A lack of Spanish colonists interested in the area led Spanish to attempt a cultural conversion of native people. This practice, known as missions, assumed that with the cultural and particularly religious conversion would allow the native peoples to essentially become equal to the Spanish (461). However, the soul-saving missions had an extremely significant and damaging impact on the natives, as the missions virtually rendered them incapable of living on the outside in their accustomed ways. Contrary to Spanish belief at the time, the native peoples had chronically shaped the land, and the Spanish influence destroyed that.

I want to build off of and challenge Wells’s comparison of Spanish and British imperialism (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/the-other-cold-war-imperial-paranoia-in-pacific-north-america/). I find his points of similarity regarding intimidation and forcefulness to be convincing and well-supported. However, the similarities only apply to Puritan praying towns, while Spanish missions consisted of a much greater portion of colonization in general. The comparison of the two imperial powers ignores the overall focus of the European countries. Many Spaniards colonized with the primary goal of soul-saving, while only a very minuscule faction of the British focused on it at all.

September 24, 2013

Religious Hysteria

In response to Sherwood’s post (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/taylor-chapter-15-norton-witchcraft-a-supernatural-inclination/), I firmly agree that there exists a linkage between the Puritan witch trials and The Great Awakening. However, I do not believe this relationship is one of causation. I find my thoughts to closely resemble those of Amelia (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/the-relationship-between-witch-trials-and-the-great-awakening/). I think that the characteristics of New England, including a strict, religious society with a relatively dense population, played a major role in both instances. However, I fail to see how witch trials themselves caused religious revival decades later.

I would also like to comment on other features that I found interesting from the readings. Taylor rebuked the notion that the colonies developed as a place of religious freedom and claimed that generally colonists “wanted their own denomination to dominate” (339). In addition to colonists not idealizing religious freedom from the start, elite Virginians also “dreaded ‘freedom of speech'” (356) as late as the 1740s. The lack of support for these principles shockingly contrasted the ideals on which the policymakers (including many elite Virginians) founded the United States later that century.

Norton highlighted secular disputes as a leading cause for witch accusation in the colonies. She did a nice job of explaining that witchcraft provided a logical and widely accepted explanation for misfortunes in colonial society, so ill-fortuned people considered supernatural altercation by an enemy a very viable possibility.

Reis noted the influencing factors and prejudices that led to women consisting of the most accused and convicted witches. She mentioned that women’s perceived mental and physical weaknesses allowed Satan to more effectively target and corrupt women than men.

Woodward’s article about witch hunting in New England prior to 1692 and Denis’s article about native peoples’ witch hunts fascinated me the most, as they offered new and educating perspectives. I lacked knowledge of New England’s witch hunts prior to that of Salem, and found the varying aspects particularly interesting. Exploring other witch hunts illuminated features regarding the processes of accusation and conviction in colonial witch hunts that I did not know about by solely studying Salem’s witch trials. For example, I did not know about Bulkeley creating new standards for evidence in witch craft trials in Connecticut. It was interesting to note his standards from the early 1660s when considering the evidence used to convict witches nearly thirty years later in Salem. Denis compared and contrasted witch persecutions in colonial societies with those of the native peoples. Native religions consisted of more supernatural beliefs, and the sudden devastation brought on by European colonization led many native peoples to attribute the misfortunes to witchcraft. Descriptions of witch hunts by native peoples struck me as surprisingly similar to those of colonial Europeans. Although Denis did note that gender did not play a factor in native witch persecutions.

Overall, I felt the readings gave a very solid overview of religious chaos in colonial America. Taylor coherently illuminated the causes and results of The Great Awakening, and the collection of authors provided numerous interesting insights on witch persecutions.

September 17, 2013

In Chapter 6 of Inhuman Bondage, Davis attempted to demonstrate how African slavery differed from region to region in the New World. He explored the origins and development of slavery in the northern, Chesapeake, and southern colonies.

Slavery initially generated significant resistance in the northern colonies. Davis cited a clash between slavery and religious ideology, particularly from the Puritans and Quakers. While antislavery sentiments existed in the English settlements in the north, the Dutch lacked the white labor supported by an influx of immigrants, and therefore looked to Africa for slavery from an early stage. Davis conveyed that although the northern colonies had low percentages of slave populations, a significantly greater percentage of labor came from African slaves. However, Davis’s central theme pertaining to the North was that although slavery existed, the North did not rely on slave labor like its southern counterparts.

Davis depicted a chronic progression of slavery and racial relations in the Chesapeake region. Initially, Africans experienced a form of servitude very similar to white laborers. However, as the proportion of white servants declined, African slavery increased at a remarkable rate, and racial distinction became more prevalent. Davis noted the distinguishing factor of Virginia slavery consisted of the dramatic natural increase in slave population. While this growth benefitted planters economically, the resulting fear among whites had a tremendous social and political impact. Essentially, whites of different status began to unify over race in resistance to the growing black population. Davis then cited an Edmund S. Morgan argument claiming that racism played a vital role in forming republican ideology in America.

The South featured a totally unique brand of slavery. At the outset, slaves experienced more freedom and equality, as Davis mentioned a source that implied blacks possessed the ability to vote at one point. The South, expressed vividly by South Carolina, relied heavily upon slave labor. In fact, slave population significantly outnumbered white population in the region, resulting in more social and cultural unity among slaves than in any other colonial region. However, slaveowners, particularly in South Carolina following the Stono Rebellion, subjected their slaves to extremely harsh treatment.

Davis pointed out a key characteristic regarding North American slavery. With the exception of South Carolina, no colonies formed with the intent of exploiting slave labor. It appeared to be a gradual and fairly universal movement in the colonies. While the slavery differed among the colonies, several important and somewhat surprising similarities existed. For example, contrary to my prior knowledge, colonists used slaves in a variety of ways and a hierarchy formed among slaves.

My least favorite aspect of Davis’s style was the lack of organization within the chapter. While he divided it regionally, I think he could have done a clearer job of breaking up the chapter. In addition, I found it a little confusing as he jumped from one topic to another within a region.

September 15, 2013

Chesapeake and Carolina – Late 17th and Early 18th Centuries

Chapter 7 of American Colonies features Taylor’s description of the development and progression of the Chesapeake Colonies. Colonists in the Chesapeake region sacrificed their quality of life for economic success. Shorter life expectancy, limited opportunity to create a family, and strenuous work permeated the region; a cost many Englishmen willingly accepted to reap the benefits of the tobacco boom during the middle of the 17th century. However, the period of economic prosperity eventually subsided, and political inaptitude resulted in unrest. Essentially, the majority of leaders lacked the experience or qualities to lead, and an imbalanced and corrupt society caused a discontented society. In addition, Governor Berkeley basically controlled trade, policy, and land distribution, and exploited his power with favoritism.

Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 aptly demonstrated the societal issues. Disputes over the distribution of land and the permission to invade native peoples’ lands led to the major conflict. While Bacon and the rebellion died fairly quickly, distinct changes followed, including the removal of Berkeley from office.

Notable differences occurred following the rebellion in an effort to satisfy the commoners. Changes in policies regarding taxes, native peoples, and land distribution all appeased the common planter. Another noteworthy transition occurred in labor. A decline in white indentured servants due to the impact of Bacon’s Rebellion led to planters looking to Africa for laborers. The dramatic influx of African slaves resulted in a fear of revolt among whites. This fear unfortunately caused severe restrictions to be placed on slaves, and a shared identity and mindset among all whites. This shared identity masked the growing economic inequality between the great and common planters.

The Carolina colonies Taylor depicted differed from the other colonies due to its large land grants, Indian relations, and slave quantity. The massive amount of land offered attracted an elite more dignified than its Chesapeake counterpart. The elite men lived luxurious lives and took pride in expressing their fortune with grace and dignity. The achievement of such success directly resulted from mastering the exploitation of other peoples, namely the African slaves and Indians. Carolina planters amassed an unparalleled amount of African slaves and incredibly secured such a dramatic population imbalance by manipulating the surrounding native peoples through trade. Essentially the colonists offered arms to the natives in return for deerskins and slave capturing. When it became apparent that deerskin trade did not provide a stable economic base, planters turned to the cash crops of rice and indigo. These crops relied upon a steady dose of slave labor, which the planters ensured through severe repression.

I found Taylor’s descriptions of the dynamic change of the Chesapeake colonies and the exploitation carried out by Carolina planters very interesting. I think Taylor successfully portrayed the attitudes and desired appearances of the colonists. However, I did notice a lack of attention paid to the sentiments African slaves and native peoples, especially considering the immense roles both played in the Carolinas.