White Society in the Antebellum South"In this book Bruce Collins adopts a fresh perspective to re-examine white society in the American South before the Civil War. He starts with the central fact that Southern whites displayed considerable unity of purpose in fighting the Civil War; and he looks back at the generation of white Southerners before the conflict to analyse the social bonds that helped to draw these people together. By examining a large body of scholarly work on the antebellum South, and a diverse sample of original sources, he is able to offer a broadly based and argued explanation of the emergence of a Southern identity from a loosely structured, often contrasting and lightly governed society. Factors which Dr. Collins sees as essential to an understanding of Southern attitudes include those of obvious importance, such as cotton culture, family life, and racial thinking stimulated by slavery, together with less frequently analysed social bonds--for example the Indian presence, historical consciousness, physical and social mobility and respectability. These and other topics are fully explored by Dr. Collins in this stimulating volume, which will be welcomed not only by the student and professional historian, but also by anyone interested in the history of the American South."--Back cover. |
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acres affluent agricultural Alabama American antebellum South anti-slavery areas argued Arkansas British camp-meetings cent Cherokee churches Civil contemporary cotton culture Deep South democratic early economic eighteenth century elite evangelical example farmers farms federal Florida free blacks frontier Genovese Georgia governor Govrs historians historical Hundley important improvement Indian Indian removal individual institutions interest Kentucky labour land late legislative seats legislature Louisiana males manumission Maryland MDAH mid nineteenth century militia Mississippi mobility moral Moreover Natchez non-slaveowners North Northern petition piedmont plantation planters political poor popular population racial reform region religious respectable RG 47 Legisl rituals rural secession Simms Slave Power slaveholders slaveowners slaveownership slavery slavery's slaves social bonds South Carolina Southern society Southern whites taxes Tennessee Texas towns University of Georgia urban vigilantism Virginia wealth white society William William Gilmore Simms William Schley women yeomen York