A New History of the American South

Recounting the saga of the American South; the prehistory of the region, from its geographical features to its ancient peoples; the history of the chiefdoms that dominated the region before the Europeans; tracing the decimation of native populations.

Investigating the complex origins of slavery in Africa; how the Atlantic slave trade was initiated by the Portuguese; a system of vast economic gain; supplying labor for New World plantations; the intended functions of Britain's American colonies.

Examining Virginia's economic conditions before slavery; discontent among English indentured laborers; the rise of slavery in the British Caribbean; the factors that made slavery a business model in Virginia; how colonists rationalized slaveholding.

The apogee of the Atlantic slave trade; how enslaved people adapted to their plight; how Barbados planters spurred the colonization of the Carolinas; the founding of Georgia and how it became a slave society; the society of the planter elite.

How the events of the American Revolution affected the southern colonies and the enslaved; the implications of the new federal government and the Constitution for the southern states and slaveholders; Congress's actions against the slave system.

The massive changes that took place in the territories that became the American South; the wars the new nation fought with the British, Native American factions and escaped slaves; how multiple conflicts forged a new unity among white Southerners.