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The Resource River of dark dreams : slavery and empire in the cotton kingdom, Walter Johnson

River of dark dreams : slavery and empire in the cotton kingdom, Walter Johnson

Creator
Author
Summary
This work looks at the history of the Mississippi River Valley in the nineteenth century and the economy that developed there, powered by steam engines and slave labor. When Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory, he envisioned an "empire for liberty" populated by self-sufficient white farmers. Cleared of Native Americans and the remnants of European empires by Andrew Jackson, the Mississippi Valley was transformed instead into a booming capitalist economy commanded by wealthy planters, powered by steam engines, and dependent on the coerced labor of slaves. This book places the Cotton Kingdom at the center of worldwide webs of exchange and exploitation that extended across oceans and drove an insatiable hunger for new lands. This bold reaccounting dramatically alters our understanding of American slavery and its role in U.S. expansionism, global capitalism, and the upcoming Civil War. Here the author traces the connections between the planters' pro-slavery ideology, Atlantic commodity markets, and Southern schemes for global ascendency. Using slave narratives, popular literature, legal records, and personal correspondence, he recreates the harrowing details of daily life under cotton's dark dominion. We meet the confidence men and gamblers who made the Valley shimmer with promise, the slave dealers, steamboat captains, and merchants who supplied the markets, the planters who wrung their civilization out of the minds and bodies of their human property, and the true believers who threatened the Union by trying to expand the Cotton Kingdom on a global scale. But at the center of the story the author tells are the enslaved people who pulled down the forests, planted the fields, picked the cotton, who labored, suffered, and resisted on the dark underside of the American dream
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
526 pages
Contents
  • Preface: Boom : The Mississippi Valley in the Time of Cotton
  • Jeffersonian Visions and Nightmares in Louisiana
  • The Panic of 1835
  • The Steamboat Sublime
  • Limits to Capital
  • Race, Anxiety, and Escape on the Antebellum Mississippi
  • Dominion
  • "The Empire of the White Man's Will"
  • The Carceral Landscape
  • The Mississippi Valley in the Time of Cotton
  • Capital, Cotton, and Free Trade
  • Tales of Mississippian Empire
  • The Material Limits of "Manifest Destiny"
  • The Grey-eyed Man of Destiny
  • The Ignominious Effort to Re-Open the Atlantic Slave Trade
Isbn
9780674045552
Instance
Label
River of dark dreams : slavery and empire in the cotton kingdom
Title
River of dark dreams
Title remainder
slavery and empire in the cotton kingdom
Statement of responsibility
Walter Johnson
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
This work looks at the history of the Mississippi River Valley in the nineteenth century and the economy that developed there, powered by steam engines and slave labor. When Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory, he envisioned an "empire for liberty" populated by self-sufficient white farmers. Cleared of Native Americans and the remnants of European empires by Andrew Jackson, the Mississippi Valley was transformed instead into a booming capitalist economy commanded by wealthy planters, powered by steam engines, and dependent on the coerced labor of slaves. This book places the Cotton Kingdom at the center of worldwide webs of exchange and exploitation that extended across oceans and drove an insatiable hunger for new lands. This bold reaccounting dramatically alters our understanding of American slavery and its role in U.S. expansionism, global capitalism, and the upcoming Civil War. Here the author traces the connections between the planters' pro-slavery ideology, Atlantic commodity markets, and Southern schemes for global ascendency. Using slave narratives, popular literature, legal records, and personal correspondence, he recreates the harrowing details of daily life under cotton's dark dominion. We meet the confidence men and gamblers who made the Valley shimmer with promise, the slave dealers, steamboat captains, and merchants who supplied the markets, the planters who wrung their civilization out of the minds and bodies of their human property, and the true believers who threatened the Union by trying to expand the Cotton Kingdom on a global scale. But at the center of the story the author tells are the enslaved people who pulled down the forests, planted the fields, picked the cotton, who labored, suffered, and resisted on the dark underside of the American dream
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
1967-
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Johnson, Walter
Illustrations
  • illustrations
  • plates
Index
index present
LC call number
E449
LC item number
.J695 2013
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Slavery
  • Cotton growing
  • Slavery
  • Capitalism
  • Social change
  • Imperialism
  • Slave trade
  • Slavernij
  • Expansie (macht)
  • Kapitalisme
  • Katoenproductie
  • Slavenhandel
  • Sociaal-economische verandering
  • Sklaverei
  • Sklavenhandel
  • Wirtschaft
  • Capitalism
  • Commerce
  • Cotton growing
  • Imperialism
  • Race relations
  • Slave trade
  • Slavery
  • Slavery
  • Social change
  • Territorial expansion
  • Mississippi River Valley
  • Mississippi River Valley
  • United States
  • Verenigde Staten
  • Zuidelijke staten
  • Mississippi (Etats-Unis, vallée)
  • Etats-Unis
  • Mississippital
  • Mississippi River Valley
  • United States
Label
River of dark dreams : slavery and empire in the cotton kingdom, Walter Johnson
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Preface: Boom : The Mississippi Valley in the Time of Cotton -- Jeffersonian Visions and Nightmares in Louisiana -- The Panic of 1835 -- The Steamboat Sublime -- Limits to Capital -- Race, Anxiety, and Escape on the Antebellum Mississippi -- Dominion -- "The Empire of the White Man's Will" -- The Carceral Landscape -- The Mississippi Valley in the Time of Cotton -- Capital, Cotton, and Free Trade -- Tales of Mississippian Empire -- The Material Limits of "Manifest Destiny" -- The Grey-eyed Man of Destiny -- The Ignominious Effort to Re-Open the Atlantic Slave Trade
Dimensions
25 cm
Extent
526 pages
Isbn
9780674045552
Isbn Type
(alkaline paper)
Lccn
2012030065
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
n
Other control number
40021980241
System control number
  • (OCoLC)809365647
  • (OCoLC)ocn809365647
Label
River of dark dreams : slavery and empire in the cotton kingdom, Walter Johnson
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Preface: Boom : The Mississippi Valley in the Time of Cotton -- Jeffersonian Visions and Nightmares in Louisiana -- The Panic of 1835 -- The Steamboat Sublime -- Limits to Capital -- Race, Anxiety, and Escape on the Antebellum Mississippi -- Dominion -- "The Empire of the White Man's Will" -- The Carceral Landscape -- The Mississippi Valley in the Time of Cotton -- Capital, Cotton, and Free Trade -- Tales of Mississippian Empire -- The Material Limits of "Manifest Destiny" -- The Grey-eyed Man of Destiny -- The Ignominious Effort to Re-Open the Atlantic Slave Trade
Dimensions
25 cm
Extent
526 pages
Isbn
9780674045552
Isbn Type
(alkaline paper)
Lccn
2012030065
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
n
Other control number
40021980241
System control number
  • (OCoLC)809365647
  • (OCoLC)ocn809365647

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