Slavery in the American Mountain South, and: The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation (review)

this novel enriches the indelible mountain epic created within all the works of his eloquent fictional landscape. Morgan's new book dramatizes the history the American Revolution at the Battle of Cowpens in a compelling and dramatic story of brave enemies and brave lovers. —Cecelia Conway Wilma Dunaway. Slavery in the American Mountain South. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 352 pages. Hardcover. $70.00. Wilma Dunaway. The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 352 pages. Hardcover. $69.95. Back in what's rapidly becoming the "classic period" of Appalachian studies, we all learned and taught that Appalachia had few slaves, that slavery as a system was unimportant in the region's economy, and that racism in the mountains was less virulent than in the Deep South. Not so, says Wilma Dunaway, and she proceeds to prove it. In these two books, which reflect a single project divided into two topics, Dunaway establishes with rich documentation and incisive analysis that slavery was an integral part of antebellum Appalachian economy and life; that the condition of mountain slaves, employed, by and large, on small plantations or in non-agricultural work, was in general even worse than in the lowlands; that destructive influences on family life were especially rife in the mountains; that white attitudes toward persons of color could be just as racist as in Dixie and that the reasons for all this are rooted in Appalachia's broader economic relation to the outside world, as explicated by Immanuel Wallerstein's theories of core and periphery. These are two of the most important books on the region in many years, not only about antebellum Appalachia but about the nature of the region in general. Dunaway supports her thesis with a vast amount of quantitative and narrative evidence (which can be directly consulted on her web site). Here is one statement that shows both her quantitative leg work and her ability to draw telling conclusions from it: "On the one hand, a Lower South farm owner was twelve times more likely to run a large plantation than his Appalachian counterpart. On the other hand, Mountain slaveholders monopolized a much higher proportion of their communities' land and wealth than did Lower South planters." On the basis of facts like these, she greatly clarifies the whole racial/class structure of antebellum Appalachia—including the role of the bitter class divisions among white Appalachians in mutual reinforcement with the racial caste system. The result is magnificent and compelling, but as with any book worth reading, cautions are in order. For instance, Dunaway frequently mentions intra-regional distinctions, but in practice this important point tends to be overwhelmed by generalizations about "Appalachian slaves." We need to resist replacing one set of sweeping generalizations about the region with another. Speaking of generalizations, to give a small example of a large concern: Ever since her 1996 The First American Frontier, some of us have wondered why such a cutting-edge scholar should have taken over almost exactly John C. Campbell's 1921 geographical definition of Southern Appalachia. One reason, it would seem, is that this is a very broad one, perhaps too broad for many uses, but not too broad for Dunaway's agenda. In one passage she justifies her use of the Campbell 89 boundaries (not credited) with regard to her controversial inclusion of the Shenandoah Valley and eastern Blue Ridge slope (not clearly named) in a way that crosses the line between the contentious and the tendentious and makes one nervous about other, less material, aspects of her framework. In particular, this tactic calls to mind the frequently voiced criticism that she defines capitalism itself too broadly and subsistence agriculture much too narrowly. Were there no actual roots in the productive system(s) for a mentality and culture of resistance to capitalism by some mountain people? Dunaway likes to dismiss her critics on this and related points as middle-class romantics, but many of them have unimpeachably working-class roots and are just asking to have their own personal experience and community traditions acknowledged and respected, whatever new context these need to be placed in...