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In this article, I show how the self-serving economic worldview of enslavers—and their belief that aging was a process of inexorable physical loss—motivated them to sell or abandon enslaved people as they grew older. It seeks to diversify our understanding of the exploitative character of American slavery by moving away from considering the vast profits gained by individual slavers, the systems of control or production on large plantations, and the economic value of slavery writ large, and to instead show how self-interest led antebellum slavers of low-to-middling means to offload the aged enslaved, and their stated need to avoid the obligations associated with paternalism on account of their own reduced circumstances. Rather than focus on the economic "efficiency" of slavers, or accede to their self-image as "masters"—whether of enslaved people or of the market—I emphasize their sense of insecurity and weakness when looking to rid themselves of elderly slaves. In doing so, I undermine their claims to mastery, underline how slavery was a system of exploitation enmeshed in wider social, economic, and political concerns, and provide direct evidence of the self-interest that shaped the actions of southern enslavers and the harm this caused enslaved people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a serial runaway slave in New Orleans, Louisiana, between 1733 and 1748, known as Baptiste. The author explains that he was a 13-year-old Chickasaw Native and that his mixed-race half-sister, Marianne, also ran away repeatedly. He discusses the Capuchins, a religious order of Franciscan friars, who repeatedly returned these runaways to the merchant who owned them.

Rather than surrendering to Union forces in 1865, various bands of ex-Confederates chose Mexican exile. From generals and elite politicians to rank-and-file soldiers, the majority of these "Confederados" journeyed to French-controlled Mexico to escape punishment, to tap financial opportunities, and to observe how southern society would function post-emancipation. Still others, as represented by the cavalry officer and Quixotic newspaper editor John Newman Edwards, understood the U.S. Civil War on more international terms. To these men, Mexico constituted a new, imperially subsidized laboratory to continue the Confederate Experiment and recreate a mythic version of the Old South. Although cut short by the violent death of Emperor Maximilian I, their saga reveals not only how adaptation to Confederate defeat took different forms in the immediate postbellum period, but also the extent to which conceptions of defeat and even the purpose of the Confederacy itself had never been monolithic in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What Maine was to the New England states, Georgia was to the southern seaboard, with the difference that it was deeply touched by influences characteristically Western. Because of the traits of her leaders and the rude aggressive policies of her people, Georgia belonged as much to the West as to the South. From colonial times the Georgia settlers had been engaged in an almost incessant struggle against the savages on her border, and had the instincts of a frontier society."    —Frederick Jackson Turner 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

W. E. B. Du Bois wrote extensively about African-American cotton growers and the Southern Black Belt, beginning with the sociological studies he conducted while at Atlanta University. Over time, his approach to these subjects became increasingly literary and experimental. He made the region—and specifically its dirt—a medium for analyzing the history and dynamics of racial capitalism, and for imagining forms of value not grounded in the violent extraction and mystification of black labor power. In doing so Du Bois countered the blame narrative developed by white southerners like Alfred Holt Stone, who attributed soil exhaustion and economic stagnation to the "monstrocity" of self-possessed black labor. He dismantles racist figures of black encumbrance, nomadism, and decay in which antebellum theories of climate determinism were retooled to promote new forms of racial exploitation. This essay analyzes Du Bois's dirt poetics in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911). Drawing from Ernesto Laclau's work on the rhetoricity of Marxist social movements, it examines the revolutionary forms of radical contingency that Du Bois discovers at the intersection of linguistic and economic value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries proved transformative for Cherokee people. At the dawn of the eighteenth century, Cherokees lived in towns and nurtured strong regional affiliations that were overlaid with the sacred obligations associated with membership in one of seven matrilineal clans. But all this changed. The encroaching Anglo settler frontier from the east and pressure from the Spanish, the French, and hostile Native warriors from the north all prompted changes in how Cherokee people represented themselves to outsiders. This article draws on colonial archives, missionary records, ethnographic travel writing, and the written and oral traditions of the Cherokee people to explore the importance of friendship among Cherokees in the Native South. What did friendship mean to Cherokees? How did Cherokees represent friendship? And how was friendship performed (and those performances interpreted) in diplomatic, social, and cultural contexts? These questions frame this essay's analysis as it seeks to enrich our understanding of friendship in Cherokee history and to highlight what Cherokee Chiefs meant when they declared "Our Hands and Hearts are Joined Together". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various aspects of U.S. Civil War documents and archives containing information about the former Confederate States of America (Confederate) Army as of 2016, and it mentions the Southern Historical Society organization's efforts to collect and preserve historical documents which explain the Confederate's version of the war. "The War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies" documents compilation and sectional reconciliation are assessed.

An essay is presented on historical scholarship regarding changes in southern families during the U.S. Civil War. Particular focus is given to generational and household approaches to the study of families. Other topics include slavery, historical sources, racial differences, marriage, and children's experiences.

The author responds to criticism of an article he wrote in the journal from several scholars concerning the influence of regionalism on U.S. foreign policy. He comments on suggestions for further research in areas such as U.S. Southern states and U.S. foreign relations, the concept of honor in the creation of support for U.S. military intervention among the citizenry of U.S. Southern states, and whether former U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson should be viewed as a Texan or a southerner. The author states that the criticisms he received would inform his scholarship on the U.S. Southern states during the Vietnam War.

Place matters in how Americans and their political representative have responded to U.S foreign relations. Domestic regionalism has exercised a persistent and at times primary influence on the formulation of U.S. foreign policy. Through a selective historiographical review of the literature addressing New England, the Midwest, and the South, this article urges scholars to recognize this important domestic influence on policy formation-an influence that affords the opportunity to assess ideological, racial, religious, economic, and political considerations in a useful collective fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author responds to an article in the journal by scholar Joseph A. Fry on the topic of regionalism in U.S. foreign policy. According to the article, Fry examined the U.S. Midwest's isolationist tendencies during the late 19th century and the early 20th century and the U.S. South's militarism and its relationship to the support of continental expansion and foreign wars that attempted to spread American political and societal values. The author states that Fry did not explore underlying questions concerning the necessity of regionalism as a historical study, and points to the differences of the South as a region in different parts of the 19th century.

The article discusses U.S. Southern states and U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. It examines the political leadership of Southern states following World War II, particularly South Carolina politician Strom Thurmond, support for the U.S. military and anti-Communist foreign policy in the South, and the cultural, economic, and political transformation associated with the Savannah River Plant (SRP) in South Carolina established by the chemical company known as the DuPont Corporation and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

The author discusses the concept of place in U.S. diplomatic history. He examines an article published in the journal by scholar Joseph A. "Andy" Fry entitled "Place Matters," refers to his own scholarship on the significance of former U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson's roots in Texas to Johnson's policies during the Vietnam War, and examines place as an ideological notion. The article also discusses the shifting conceptions and definitions of place in the U.S. The article alludes to regionalism in the U.S., particularly the isolationism of the U.S. Midwest in the 20th century, the U.S. South's support for the Vietnam War, and support for the Federalists in New England in the late 18th century. The author compares Fry's article in the journal to a Jewish dish known as stuffed derma.

The article discusses the use of the legal system by newly freed slaves after the American Civil War. The author points out that during the beginning of the Reconstruction period, former slaves made prompt use of the legal system in gaining rights and freedoms. The author points out that many other rural areas avoid the capricious of courts in favor of alternate "conflict resolution." She explores the variety of data in both the Antebellum South, as well as post Civil War to attempt to explain the reasons behind such a phenomena.

The article suggests that the global reframing of the relationship between U.S. and its defeated, occupied Southern states, made "The Great South" series of Josiah Gilbert Holland in the "Scribner's Monthly" magazine a revelation for contemporary U.S. readers. Holland's choice of his correspondent for the series also demonstrated the connection that the was emphasizing between British imperial writing about Africa and the U.S. postwar writing about the southern states.

This article considers the incidence and meaning of return migration that took place during the twentieth-century "Great Migration" of southern whites and African-Americans to the U.S. North and West. Southern whites in particular had an unusually high rate of return, though this pattern varied significantly from one northern city to another. After presenting an overview of return movement in the Great Migration, this article compares migrants' experiences in two northern cities that had very different histories of return migration. Southern migrants to Indianapolis, Indiana, came mainly from a relatively prosperous southern region to which they returned with great frequency. Southern migrants to Cincinnati, Ohio, on the other hand, moved from one of the most impoverished subregions of the Appalachian South and were much more likely to choose life in the North over a questionable future at home. Ultimately, Cincinnati's migrants drew on their common sense of exile to build a vocal migrant community in the North, while Indianapolis's migrants showed no similar efforts. The two cases together demonstrate the importance of understanding the tight relationship between patterns in return migration and migrant community development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines how secular African American leaders invoked the progressive power of science to attack white supremacy in the South and to challenge ministerial dominance in their own communities, with reference to the 1925 trial of John Scopes in Tennessee. Representation of race and region in the Scopes trial; Factors that motivated southern white antievolutionists; Arguments raised by black writers on the direct connection between racial prejudice and the antievolution movement.

This article investigates the truth behind the low tolerance levels of Southerners due to the prominence of fundamentalist Protestantism. To explore these issues related to Southern tolerance researcher analyzed data from the 1988 General Social Survey. The GSS is a cross-sectional national survey replicated every year since 1972, with the exception of 1979 and 1981. The 1988 edition of the GSS is singularly appropriate for the project at hand because it includes a unique array of items focusing on religious practices; moral beliefs, and tolerance toward unpopular segments of American society, as well as information on the regional background, sociodemographic characteristics, and political views of the respondents. Tolerance refers to the willingness to extend civil liberties to deviant groups. To minimize the risk of conflating tolerance with liberalism, a number of previous studies have emphasized the importance of measuring tolerance toward a range of nonmainstream groups from both the left and right of the sociopolitical spectrum.

Evaluates the lives of slaves and non-planter whites by historians in the antebellum South of the United States, while highlighting the story of a character called Snell, on relations between common and planter white men in 1821. Excerpts from the newspaper story; Speculation about Snell's background; Details on the attitudes of common whites in Tallahassee in 1842.

Focuses on the transition of social and economic history in the Southern states. Orangeburg District, South Carolina residents' protest against a dam that provides hydro power to Ferguson's Mills; Widespread regional controversy over milldams and fishing rights; Shift from an economy based on pioneer subsistence to one based on slavery and the market.

Focuses on enlistments throughout a southern state to shed light on the nature of local circumstance and on the reasons why individuals join the confederate army. Study covering 1,010 Mississippi males between the ages of 13 and 45; Influence on enlistment.

Examines the change in condition from self-sufficiency to peonage in the Southern States in the postbellum period. Workload of farmers and the slaves; System of self-sufficiency; Peonage of White farmers through sharecropping and tenancy; Changes in farm structure.

Responds to comments made by Horald D. Woodman on the author's article 'Class Structure and Economic Development in the American South, 1865-1955,' previously published in the October 1979 issue of the periodical 'American Historian Review.' Justification of the economic growth of Southern states; Questions pertaining to the interpretation of class relations.

Comments on the article 'Class Structure and Economic Development in American South 1865-1955,' by Jonathan M. Wiener, published in the October 1979 issue of the periodical 'American Historical Review.' Lack of the use of the simple standard of honesty; Drawbacks in the class-conflict analysis; Emphasis on social classes.

Focuses on the class structure and socioeconomic development in the Southern States from 1865-1955. Evidence of the rationality of the response of the region's economy to market forces; Agricultural economy during the post-war period; Laws regarding the freedom of labor; Populist movement for Southern farmers labored; Surplus of labor after 1937.

The article discusses the relationship between the concepts of honor, war, and regionalism as related to U.S. foreign policy. The author also comments on an article concerning the historiography of regionalism and U.S. foreign policy published in the journal by scholar Andrew Fry. The article examines the regionalism of U.S. Southern states, and refers to the book "Albion's Seed" by scholar David Hackett Fischer concerning the influence of the southern English roots of residents of the U.S. South in foreign intervention and calls to arms. The author discusses Southern reaction to the War of 1812, the concept of defending American honor in the Vietnam War propagated by then-U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson, and former U.S. president George W. Bush's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The article discusses the contributions of chronicler and litterateur Ambrose E. Gonzales towards the presentation of Southern history. The article contends that Gonzales is one Southerner who has devoted himself to a particular field, has searched it thoroughly, painstakingly, throughout many years, and has honestly and carefully transferred to paper what he found. It is a sort of work that the whole country needs, and that the South needs especially. American civilization is conspicuously a civilization of "royal roads." There is something refreshing and stimulating, therefore, in the discovery of an American who has been willing to devote years of intensive effort to one small section of the field of literature. Gonzales has done in his studies of the Gullah Negroes of the South Carolina coast, the section known locally as the "Black Border." Gonzales' four volumes are an idealistic presentation of a phase of the South that is passing. They were written for the general reader, but they cannot be overlooked by the future interpreter of Southern civilization, who will discount their idealism, but respect their enormous content of sound and curious learning.

The article offers reviews of the U.S. Southern States history web sites titled "Lowcountry Digital Library" ("LDL"), located at http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/, and the "Lowcountry Digital History Initiative," ("LDHI") located at http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/, each developed by the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to Sylvia L. Hilton's review of the book "Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana-Florida Borderlands, 1762-1803," by David E Narrett which appeared in the February 2016 issue.