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![Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase
376
by Roger G. Kennedy
Roger G. Kennedy
![Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase
376
by Roger G. Kennedy
Roger G. Kennedy
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Overview
Thomas Jefferson advocated a republic of small farmersfree and independent yeomen. And yet as president he presided over a massive expansion of the slaveholding plantation system, particularly with the Louisiana Purchase, squeezing the yeomanry to the fringes and to less desirable farmland. Now Roger G. Kennedy conducts an eye-opening examination of the gap between Jefferson's stated aspirations and what actually happened.
Kennedy reveals how the Louisiana Purchase had a major impact on land use and the growth of slavery. He examines the great financial interests (such as the powerful land companies that speculated in new territories and the British textile interests) that beat down slavery's many opponents in the South itself (Native Americans, African Americans, Appalachian farmers, and conscientious opponents of slavery). He describes how slaveholders' cash cropsfirst tobacco, then cottonsickened the soil and how the planters moved from one desolated tract to the next. Soon the dominant culture of the entire regionfrom Maryland to Florida, from Carolina to Texaswas that of owners and slaves producing staple crops for international markets. The earth itself was impoverished, in many places beyond redemption.
None of this, Kennedy argues, was inevitable. He focuses on the character, ideas, and ambitions of Thomas Jefferson to show how he and other Southerners struggled with the moral dilemmas presented by the presence of Indian farmers on land they coveted, by the enslavement of their workforce, by the betrayal of their stated hopes, and by the manifest damage being done to the earth itself. Jefferson emerges as a tragic figure in a tragic period.
Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause was a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2003.
Kennedy reveals how the Louisiana Purchase had a major impact on land use and the growth of slavery. He examines the great financial interests (such as the powerful land companies that speculated in new territories and the British textile interests) that beat down slavery's many opponents in the South itself (Native Americans, African Americans, Appalachian farmers, and conscientious opponents of slavery). He describes how slaveholders' cash cropsfirst tobacco, then cottonsickened the soil and how the planters moved from one desolated tract to the next. Soon the dominant culture of the entire regionfrom Maryland to Florida, from Carolina to Texaswas that of owners and slaves producing staple crops for international markets. The earth itself was impoverished, in many places beyond redemption.
None of this, Kennedy argues, was inevitable. He focuses on the character, ideas, and ambitions of Thomas Jefferson to show how he and other Southerners struggled with the moral dilemmas presented by the presence of Indian farmers on land they coveted, by the enslavement of their workforce, by the betrayal of their stated hopes, and by the manifest damage being done to the earth itself. Jefferson emerges as a tragic figure in a tragic period.
Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause was a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2003.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780195176070 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Publication date: | 10/07/2004 |
Pages: | 376 |
Product dimensions: | 9.20(w) x 6.34(h) x 0.98(d) |
Lexile: | 1460L (what's this?) |
About the Author
Roger Kennedy is Director Emeritus of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, and a past Director of the National Park Service. He has had a long and distinguished career in public service during which he has served six presidents. His books include Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson and (as general editor and contributor) the twelve-volume Smithsonian Guide to Historic America.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments | xi | |
Chronology | xiii | |
Part 1 | The Land and Mr. Jefferson | 1 |
Chapter 15 | ||
Choices and Consequences | ||
Rain in Virginia and Its Results Lessons for Yeomen | ||
Pasteur, Wilson, and the Three Sisters Yeomen, Planters, and the Land | ||
Cheap Land and Slave Labor | ||
Chapter 2 | Washington, Jefferson, Three Worthies, and Plantation Migrancy Philosophers in the Parlor and Lessons on the Land Westward Sweeps the Course of Desolation The Gospel of Garland Harmon | 17 |
Chapter 326 | ||
The Way Not Taken | ||
The Makers of a New Order | ||
Jefferson's Epitaph Disestablishing the Grandees | ||
The Brotherhood | ||
The Unpropitiated Son Monticello Again | ||
Jefferson and Democracy Jefferson and the Family Farmer | ||
Chapter 443 | ||
Independence | ||
A Dependent Arcadia | ||
The Virtues of Diversification Commercial Squires and Ungovernable Governors Diversification, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Cities Eastward Toward Civility | ||
The Thousand-Foot Line | ||
Chapter 560 | ||
Powers of the Earth Land Companies, Trading Companies, and Triassic Capitalism The Great Land Companies and Revolution Jefferson and Western Speculation | ||
Veterans' Benefits Armed Occupation | ||
Armed Occupation Marches On | ||
Chapter 673 | ||
Jefferson's Opportunities and the Land 1784 | ||
The Second Opportunity | ||
The Trans-Appalachian West The Third Opportunity | ||
The Lower Mississippi Valley Old Men's Dreams and the Memories of the Land | ||
Part 2 | The Invisible Empire and the Land | 85 |
Chapter 787 | ||
Colonial-Imperialism | ||
Colonies and Empires From Round Table to Board Table | ||
Reinvesting the Loot Landed Gentry | ||
Chapter 897 | ||
Textile Colonial-Imperialism | ||
India Is Conquered by the Mechanics Solving the Problem of Supply | ||
The Americans Are Put on Notice Hamilton, Jefferson, and Tench Coxe Respond to William Pitt Jefferson and the Cotton Business | ||
Slaves as Cash Crop The Millers Send Out Their Salesmen | ||
Independence? The British and the Plantocracy | ||
Part 3 | Resistance to the Plantation System | 115 |
Chapter 9119 | ||
McGillivray | ||
Mixed People and Mixed Motives | ||
Indian Statehood McGillivray's Nationality | ||
McGillivray and Washington | ||
Chapter 10129 | ||
Resisters, Assisters, and Lost Causes Scots, Blacks, and Seminoles | ||
The Firm | ||
The Valences Shift William Augustus Bowles--The Second Act Bowles and Ellicott | ||
"Execute Him on the Spot" The Fox Is Run to Earth | ||
Chapter 11144 | ||
The Firm Steps Forward | ||
Deerskins, Rum, and Land Indian Yeomen and Governor Sargent's Lost Cause | ||
Yankee Yeomen | ||
Chapter 12152 | ||
Jeffersonian Strategy and Jeffersonian Agents | ||
Jefferson and Wilkinson Wilkinson's Clients | ||
The Firm Adapts and Collects Wilkinson, Forbes, and Dearborn | ||
Debt for Land The Accounts of Silas Dinsmoor | ||
The Firm Wraps Things Up Andrew Jackson Takes Charge, with Some Help from Benjamin Hawkins | ||
Part 4 | Agents of the Master Organism: Assistants to the Plantation System | 169 |
Chapter 13173 | ||
Fulwar Skipwith in Context | ||
Skipwith the Jeffersonian Toussaint's Yeoman Republic | ||
The Career of Fulwar Skipwith The Quasi War and Spoliation | ||
James Monroe's First Mission to France Skipwith, the Livingstons, and Louisiana Cotton The Chancellor, Indolent Maroons, and Thomas Sumter Mister Sumter Is Shocked | ||
The Third Article | ||
Skipwith and the Floridas Consul Skipwith Goes to Jail | ||
Chapter 14193 | ||
Destiny by Intention | ||
The Adventures of George Mathews War, Commerce, and Race | ||
Assisters and Resisters The Green Flag of Florida | ||
Chapter 15205 | ||
Louisiana and Another Class of Virginians The Third Opportunity Reconsidered | ||
The Hillhouse Debates | ||
Chapter 16217 | ||
The Virginians of Louisiana Decide the Future of the Land Out of the Hills | ||
The Kemper Outrage | ||
1809-1810 Skipwith and Randolph | ||
Complexities in Baton Rouge Skipwith at Bay | ||
Haiti Again | ||
Skipwith's Florida | ||
Epilogue | 235 | |
The Jeffersonian Legacy: The Civil War and the Homestead Act Statesmanship and Self-Deception | ||
Final Thoughts The Economics of Land Use | ||
Appendix | 245 | |
Another Stream Jefferson, Madison, Adam Smith, and the Chesapeake Cities The Romans, Armed Occupation, and the Homestead Act Jefferson and the Ordinances of 1784 and 1787-89 | ||
Debt and Land Jefferson's Doctrine of Usufruct | ||
Tribes, Land, and Ireland Creeks, Seminoles, and Numbers | ||
The Livingstons and West Florida The Claiborne-Clark Duel | ||
Fulwar Skipwith and Andrew Jackson | ||
Notes | 262 | |
Bibliographic Note | 307 | |
Bibliography | 312 | |
Index | 336 |
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