By William Dusinberre
ISBN-10: 0195157354
ISBN-13: 9780195157352
ISBN-10: 0195185536
ISBN-13: 9780195185539
James Polk was once President of the USA from 1845 to 1849, a time whilst slavery started to dominate American politics. Polk's presidency coincided with the eruption of the territorial slavery factor, which inside of many years may result in the disaster of the Civil warfare. Polk himself owned monstrous cotton plantations-- in Tennessee and later in Mississippi-- and a few 50 slaves. in contrast to many antebellum planters who portrayed their involvement with slavery as a ancient burden bestowed onto them via their ancestors, Polk entered the slave enterprise of his personal volition, for purposes mostly of economic self-interest. Drawing on formerly unexplored files, Slavemaster President recreates the realm of Polk's plantation and the non-public histories of his slaves, in what's arguably the main cautious and vibrant account thus far of the way slavery functioned on a unmarried cotton plantation. lifestyles on the Polk property used to be brutal and infrequently brief. Fewer than one in slave young children lived to the age of fifteen, a baby mortality price even better than that at the common plantation. a gradual movement of slaves quickly fled the plantation all through Polk's tenure as absentee slavemaster. but Polk used to be in a few respects an enlightened proprietor, instituting an strange incentive plan for his slaves and granting huge privileges to his such a lot favourite slave. Startlingly, Dusinberre indicates how Polk sought to conceal from public wisdom the truth that, whereas he used to be president, he was once secretly paying for as many slaves as his plantation sales authorized. almost immediately earlier than his unexpected loss of life from cholera, the president quietly drafted a brand new will, within which he expressed the wish that his slaves could be freed--but basically after he and his spouse have been either useless. The very subsequent day, he licensed the acquisition, in strictest secrecy, of six extra very younger slaves. in contrast with Senator John C. Calhoun, President Polk has been noticeable as a reasonable Southern Democratic chief. yet Dusinberre means that the president's political stance towards slavery-- stimulated because it was once by way of his deep own involvement within the plantation system-- may very well have helped precipitate the Civil warfare that Polk sought to avoid.
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Additional resources for Slavemaster President: The Double Career of James Polk
Sample text
11 Polk’s brother-in-law and future business partner, Silas Caldwell, wanted to sell Jack or else to work him on his own West Tennessee plantation, for he presciently thought Jack would escape again if returned to Beanland’s supervision. James Walker was of similar persuasion. But Beanland was determined to have Jack back in order to teach the other slaves a lesson: “I want them boath [ Jack and Ben] brought back. ” Polk’s instincts sometimes were for strictness. 12 No doubt Beanland then inflicted condign punishment on the captured fugitive.
26 Perhaps Dismukes’s criticism had left in Polk’s mind a festering irritation, which overcame any reluctance Polk might have felt about parting with his undeferential subaltern. he new overseer, John Mairs, who took over in 1845 when Polk became president, served Polk and later Polk’s widow for fifteen years, until she sold a half share of the plantation in 1860—an extraordinary record in a job in which dissatisfied employers often dismissed the overseers after only a year or two. Polk’s neighbor Leigh considered Mairs “an excellent manager .
15 Henry, somehow obtaining clothes to wear and probably traveling only at night, walked during a week and a half the 110 miles, as the crow flies, 36 flight (ii) to Silas Caldwell’s plantation in western Tennessee, where he sought protection with Polk’s brother-in-law and former partner. 16 Polk promptly fired Garner. The overseer’s offense was not having authorized the slave to be shot, for Polk continued to be friendly with his Mississippi neighbor Leigh, whose son Randolph was probably the “Mr.
Slavemaster President: The Double Career of James Polk by William Dusinberre
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