The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations On Cotton And Slavery In The American Slave States, 1853-1861

A fascinating (and saddening) first-person view of perhaps the darkest element of U.S. history. The author travelled throughout the South as a self-motivated researcher of slavery and life in the time right before the Civil War. Rarely, if ever, do we get to see something in the past with such detail. The author's professed goal was to see things as objectively as was possible and I believe he succeeds in his goal. There are some elements of tedium in the book as he describes his travels from one place to the next describing the roads or how he goes to this house or that place seeking to stay for the night. Like me, you may start to skim over those mundane parts and look forward to his priceless descriptions of his interactions and his conclusions he draws along the way. I will withhold most of the author's insights and conclusions but will share a few in the sentences to follow. Southerners were hardly monolithic in their views on slavery. There was great ambivalence for the most part, even sometimes amongst slave owners. Poor whites often viewed slave labor as competition for their own labor. Some disagreed with slavey on purely moral grounds. The only real supporters were slave owners and they gave various rationalizations about how life was better for the slaves than for laborers in the North (for example). Slaves had various levels of freedom to take monetary advantage of their efforts. For example, some could work for themselves after they finished their required labors. Not surprisingly, these slaves seemed to do better than the ones who had little freedom to pursue their own economic interests. Large plantation owners often tried to buy out their poorer neighbors as they didn't want slaves to see those neighbors living lives of greater relative ease. Slave owners felt these neighbors would be a "corrupting" influence on slaves attitudes towards their own situations. Thus, large plantations were pretty isolated. As is well known, slaves were usually not allowed to learn to read or write so as to keep them in a a servile position. One surprising finding for me was black slave owners were felt (by slaves) to be the worst slave drivers with little empathy for their slaves. The book, overall, was an incredible journey about a past time period much discussed in our current times. I read the Kindle version and could hardly rest until I finished it. For the extremely reasonable price, I believe reading and working through it will benefit the reader in his/her understanding of that time period and how it probably influences events even today.

The erudite reader will recognize Olmstead as a source for historians, notably James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, etc. Olmstead lays forth the argument that slavery was as inefficient as it was inhumane while recounting his personal experiences and observations while touring the cotton states. He is opinionated and displays bigotry of his own, such as referring to merchants as "dirty Jews" and his scorn for the ignorance of various people of both colors. The information is unique and fascinating, but the presentation is boring. Olmstead makes a trip on horseback to visit a plantation and becomes hopelessly lost and much frustrated, more so after each encounter with less than helpful locals. Seemingly, nothing is too trivial and inane to not be included in the telling. Still, it's enlightening as to the condition of the citizens of the south, rich, poor, free, and slaves. For example, not that many slaves were actually used for cotton farming. The slave owners in Virginia were making their money as breeders, raising slaves to sell to the cotton growers, who were only interested in prime field hands. Naked misanthropy and virulent racism abound. Olmstead attacks the myth that slave owners were somehow courtly, or chivalrous. They appear as cruel, hateful and indifferent.

I loved the expeditionary narrative of this tome and there was more food for thought contained in it than any other publication about the pre-Civil War South than I have ever read. Olmsted gives the lie to the “Gone with the Wind” romanticism of Southern plantation life. I found his observations about the sorry state of roads and almost all forms of transportation in the South at the time especially instructive. The economic case Olmsted makes against slavery is very convincing as are his observations on the effects of cheap land on soil depletion that attended the cultivation of Southern cotton. The way Olmsted describes the Old Dominion is singularly repulsive and there is nary a compliment about any aspect of Southern culture or the black race.At the same time, Olmstead’s work is replete with blatant racism, prejudice of every sort, self congratulatory arrogance, unsubstantiated claims of Northern social, moral and intellectual superiority, disjointed hyperbole, unvarnished sectional hostility and typical Yankee self righteousness. Still, this man made the trip and what a trip it was! If nothing else, the work docments the hostility of Northern intellectuals toward the South that existed long before the Civil War and persists to the present day.Required reading for anyone who is interested in the unexpurgated version of the “war between the states,” and wants to better understand the documented attitudes of upper class pre-Civil War Northern commentators on slavery and Southern culture. This book also helps to explain the prevailing point of view that led to a botched and vindictive post war Reconstruction philosophy that ushered in Jim Crow. The chronicler appeared to think less of the black man than even his Southern slaveholding counterparts did.Frederick Law Olmsted was more than a first class landscape architect and a Vanderbilt handmaiden. I’ll never think of him the same way again. I highly recommend this book to people who like to read about what people really observed and thought at the time great historical events were unfolding. As such, this book ‘s real value lies in its exposure of prevailing “nose in the air” Northern hypocrisy that continues to impede social progress in America today.

A bit dry reading but the author puts very good practical reasons against slavery. He proves again and again that slavery was just not economic for the slave states. He also proves to my satisfaction that slavery diminished the slave states in all respects.

A bit worn but fine

Great.