Seeds of empire [electronic resource] : cotton, slavery, and the transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850 / Andrew J. Torget.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Torget, Andrew J., 1978- author.

Series:

David J. Weber series in the new borderlands history.

The David J. Weber series in the new borderlands history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Mexico--History--19th century.

Slavery.

Slavery--Texas--History--19th century.

Cotton trade--Mexico--History--19th century.

Cotton trade.

Cotton trade--Texas--History--19th century.

Mexico--History--19th century.

Mexico.

Mexico--History--Wars of Independence, 1810-1821.

Texas--History--Republic, 1836-1846.

Texas.

Texas--History--Revolution, 1835-1836.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (368 p.)

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2015

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

By the late 1810s, a global revolution in cotton had remade the U.S.-Mexico border, bringing wealth and waves of Americans to the Gulf Coast while also devastating the lives and villages of Mexicans in Texas. In response, Mexico threw open its northern territories to American farmers in hopes that cotton could bring prosperity to the region. Thousands of Anglo-Americans poured into Texas, but their insistence that slavery accompany them sparked pitched battles across Mexico. An extraordinary alliance of Anglos and Mexicans in Texas came together to defend slavery against abolitionists in the Mexican government, beginning a series of fights that culminated in the Texas Revolution. In the aftermath, Anglo-Americans rebuilt the Texas borderlands into the most unlikely creation: the first fully committed slaveholders' republic in North America. Seeds of Empire tells the remarkable story of how the cotton revolution of the early nineteenth century transformed northeastern Mexico into the western edge of the United States, and how the rise and spectacular collapse of the Republic of Texas as a nation built on cotton and slavery proved to be a blueprint for the Confederacy of the 1860s.

Contents:

Introduction. Cotton, slavery, and empire

In the shadow of cotton

The Texas borderlands on the eve of Mexican independence

Bringing Mississippi to Mexico

American migration to Mexico, 1821-1825

The politics of slavery in northeastern Mexico, 1826-1829

Cotton, slavery, and the secession of Texas, 1829-1836

Cotton nation and slaveholders' republic

Creating a cotton nation, 1836-1841

The failure of the slaveholders' republic, 1842-1845

Epilogue. Migrations and transformations

Appendix 1. The Texas slavery project

Appendix 2. Cotton prices and trade.

Notes:

"Short sections of chapters 2 and 3 appeared previously in Stephen F. Austin's views on slavery in early Texas, in This corner of Canaan : essays on Texas in honor of Randolph B. Campbell, edited by Richard McCaslin, Donald Chipman, and Andrew J. Torget (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2013)."--Publisher's description.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

979-88-908481-0-9

1-4696-2426-5