The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities
Kenneth E. Koons and Warren R. Hofstra, ed., After the Backcountry: Rural Life in the Great Valley of Virginia, 1800-1900 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000).

SYNOPSIS:

Koons and Hofstra's edited collection of essays examines the nineteenth-century economic, social, religious, and cultural experience of residents in the Great Valley of Virginia. They argue that the Valley was dominated by wheat production, but they point out that wheat achieved its greatest predominance in the post-Civil War period. They suggest that the Valley constituted a regional "middle country," a place to pass through rather than to settle. They point out that slavery was readily adaptable to the mixed economy of the region, and they argue that it may have prevented the economy from growing in the antebellum period. The essays in this volume describe the settlement patterns and architectural practices of the region, finding that the Valley wealthy did not build large houses or elaborate estates on the model of the Tidewater planters. Instead, while they held slaves and practiced a dynamic commercial agriculture and mixed industry, they did not replicate the hierarchy or culture of the tobacco region. J. Susanne Simmons and Nancy Sorrell's essay, "Slave Hire and the Development of Slavery in Augusta County, Virginia," documents the widespread practice of slave hiring throughout the agricultural economy of Augusta, calling such practices "the cornerstone" of the rural economy in Augusta.

EXCERPT:

"Wheat organized economic life as well as social experience. It shaped directly the lives of those who produced it and indirectly the well-being of virtually every resident of the valley. Commercial wheat production served as the main catalyst for the growth of towns and for the establishment of commercial linkages with other regions."

RELATIONSHIP:

The essays in this book provide one of the closest examinations of the nineteenth century in the Valley of Virginia we have. We agree that slave hiring was widespread in Augusta and that slavery was well established in the region. We agree also that wheat was a primary crop in the region in the 1850s and that wheat was never a monoculture in the Valley.

Points of Analysis to this Historiography:

"On a per capita basis, Franklin farmers grew far less corn and more wheat than their counterparts in Augusta, and their commitment to wheat was seen by many as both the symbol of the North's wealth and the evidence of its superior labor system."

"The richest farm households in Augusta, however, had a high correlation with relatively high wheat production and low corn production, and slavery enabled even greater success on these farms."

"Enslaved people were hired out to non-slaveholding farmers, railroad companies, and other businesses."


Citation: Key = H053
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