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Origins of the Old South: Revolution, Slavery, and Changes in Southern Society, 1776-1800 Matthew P. Spooner Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2015 © 2015 Matthew P. Spooner All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Origins of the Old South: Revolution, Slavery, and Changes in Southern Society, 1776-1800 Matthew Spooner The American Revolution and its aftermath posed the greatest challenge to the institution of slavery since the first Africans landed in Jamestown. Revolutionary defenses of the natural equality of man provided ammunition for generations of men and women opposed to racial subordination while the ideological strains of the struggle sounded the death knell for slavery in Northern states and led significant numbers of Southerners to question the morality and safety of slaveholding. Most importantly, the bloody and chaotic war in the South provided an unprecedented opportunity for slaves to challenge their bondage as tens of thousands of black men and women fled to the British, the swamps, or the relative anonymity of the cities. Merging social, military, and economic history, "Origins of the Old South" examines how, in the attempt to rebuild their society from the ravages of war, black and white Southerners together created the new and historically distinct slave society of the “Old South.” The first two chapters of the dissertation demonstrate how the struggle to contain the disorders of a civil war amongst half a million enslaved African-Americans transformed the Southern states—the scene of the war’s bloodiest fighting after 1778— into a crucible in which men, land, and debt melted into capital. State governments redistributed thousands of slaves and millions of acres of land to purchase supplies and raise troops from within a weary populace; the estates of many of the South’s most important planters, comprising roughly ten percent of the region’s real and personal wealth, were confiscated and sold at auction at a fraction of their value; and wartime prestige coupled with the departure of prominent loyalists allowed a legion of “new men” to come into control of the new state governments. The result was the ascendance of a new class of merchant planters, who pushed the locus of Southern development inland, and major changes in the contours of black life in the region. The remaining three chapters of the dissertation examine these twinned consequences of the Revolution over the following three decades. Chapter three follows the experience of enslaved men and women after the war, tracing their movement throughout the Atlantic World and across the boundary between slavery and freedom during the conflict. Chapter four then looks at the impact of the region's ill-fated antislavery push during and immediately after the war, while chapter five shows how early national state governments drove slavery's expansion and closed the revolutionary moment in the process. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Abbreviations Used i Acknowledgements iii Preface vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Disorder, Slave Property, and the American Revolution in the Southern States 20 Chapter 2: The Spoils of War: Slaves, Debt Slaves, Debt, and Social Change in the Revolutionary South 65 Chapter 3: Shades of Freedom: War, Mobility, and the Ironies of Liberty 120 Chapter 4: The Short, Unhappy Life of Antislavery Sentiment in the Post-Revolutionary South 172 Chapter 5: Canals, Courts, and the Twilight of 231 the American Revolution Coda 271 Bibliography 274 i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED Catt. – Catterall, Helen Tunnicliff, ed. Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro. 8 vols. Reprint; New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968. CSR – Saunders, William L., et. al., eds. The Colonial and Early State Records of North Carolina. 26 vols. Raleigh, NC: P.W. Hale, 1886-1914. CVSP – Walker, R. F., et. al., ed. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, and Other Manuscripts. 11 volumes. Richmond: J.H. O’Bannon, 1875-93. DUL – Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC. GHA – Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, GA. GSA – State Archives of Georgia, Morrow, GA. HLP – Laurens, Henry. The Papers of Henry Laurens. Ed. David R. Chesnutt. 16 vols. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1968-2002. LiVa – Library of Virginia, Richmond, VA LOC – Library of Congress, Washington, DC. LCC – Papers of the Loyalist Claims Commission, The National Archives, Kew, UK. NSA – North Carolina Department of History and Archives, Raleigh, NC. NYHS – New York Historical Society, New York, NY. NYPL – New York Public Library, New York, NY. RRG – Candler, Allan D. ed. The Revolutionary Records of the State of Georgia. 3 Vols. Atlanta, GA: The Franklin-Turner Company, 1908-10. SCDAH – South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC. SCHS – South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, SC. i SCL – South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. SHC – Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC. UVA – Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. VHS – Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA. WCL – William Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I can only hope that some of what is contained within my dissertation reflects the extraordinary help and guidance I have received these past long years. I could not have hoped to receive the support I did from so many generous and brilliant people and I will be forever grateful. My career as a historian began my first semester at Bowdoin College in Patrick Rael’s introductory lecture on the relationship between war and society. In his lectures and over a chessboard Patrick showed me the excitement to be found in puzzling the problems of the past and the power of history to understand the injustices of the present. During my four years at Bowdoin he was both a mentor and friend, and much of my success (though none of my faults) are owed to him and to others on Bowdoin’s faculty, especially William Watterson, Scott Sehon, and Dallas Denery. I could not have written more than a few lines of my dissertation without the financial support of numerous foundations and the help of the many archivists and historians I met during my three years of sojourning through the southeastern states. For all the wonders of the digital humanities there will never be a replacement for speaking to the scholars and thinkers who work in our archives. I must particularly thank—among many others—Laura Clark Brown at the University of North Carolina’s Southern Historical Collection; Jeffrey Crow at the State Archives of North Carolina; Meg McSweeney, William Tatum, and Kathie Ludwig at the David Library of the American Revolution; and Graham Duncan and Brian Cuthrell at the University of South Carolina’s South Caroliniana Library. iii Along my way I was lucky enough to meet and receive insight from many of the historians who have influenced this project. Among many others, Peter Wood gave me encouragement and no small amount of inspiration during the first leg of my journey, as did Peter Coclanis. At the Omohundro Institute, Ronald Hoffman made me feel welcome and in long conversations in his office reconvinced me that the work I was doing was important. Eugene Genovese, who I last saw a few weeks before he died, gave me the often caustic but incredibly useful feedback one might expect over many long lunches in Atlanta. And Richard Dunn has been both a needed friend and a generous supporter, sharing notes and thoughts from his decades of working on slavery in Virginia and Jamaica. During my graduate career at Columbia University I was blessed to learn from some of the most brilliant minds I hope to encounter, not least among my fellow colleagues. I could not have hoped to survive my graduate career without the encouragement and intellectual prowess of Thai Jones, Michael Woodsworth, Melissa Borja, Yuki Oda, Jessica Adler, Tamara Mann-Tweel, and Benjamin Lyon, Bryan Rosenblithe, Sarah Kirshen, Justin Jackson, and many others. Eric Wakin at the Columbia Rare Books and Manuscripts Library lent me support of every kind over more than five years. Bryan Rosenblithe, Claire Edington, and Daniel Navon saw me through the best and worst times and I will ever be in their debt. I am most grateful for the time I was able to spend learning from Columbia’s faculty and staff. Sharee Nash was patient with me over the years and in the end perhaps did more to concretely assist me than anyone in New York. This project began in a conversation with Steven Mintz and owes much to the questions he asked more than five iv years ago.Elizabeth Blackmar is a brilliant teacher and the strongest advocate a graduate student could ask for. Evan Haefeli, whose knowledge of Early America intimidated and inspired me during my first few years, opened up new ways of thinking about the Revolution and aided me in navigating the eighteenth-century after many years in the nineteenth. Christopher Brown shaped my thinking on Atlantic slavery after he arrived at Columbia during my second year and was always a friend first and foremost as well as a wonderful mentor. So much of this project has come from what I have learned from Barbara Fields, whether on long walks in Riverside Park or in her History of the South course, which I sat through three times and would sit through again every chance I get. Finally, my advisor Eric Foner has been a tireless and unwavering supporter of myself and so many others. I remain in awe not only of his mastery of American history and his work, which sets the bar to which all young historians should aspire, but also of his generosity.