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Full-Text Articles in History
"The American Canaan": Eighteenth Century Trans-Appalachian Migration, Lauren C. James
"The American Canaan": Eighteenth Century Trans-Appalachian Migration, Lauren C. James
Masters Theses, 2010-2019
This thesis examines the events that produced a uniquely Tennessean identity before the 1796 statehood through a careful examination of the late colonial, Revolutionary, and Early Republic periods in the Appalachian backcountry. It argues that land, as a tangible embodiment of the republican notion of liberty, was the chief motivation for the actions of these backcountry settlers in the latter half of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It first addresses specific circumstances concerning the motivation for the migration of hundreds, even thousands, of individuals across the Appalachian Mountains into Cherokee lands from four distinct originating colonies: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, …
“Endangering The Stability Of Slavery”: Black Freedom In The Upper South, 1820-1850, Ashley K. Schmidt
“Endangering The Stability Of Slavery”: Black Freedom In The Upper South, 1820-1850, Ashley K. Schmidt
Masters Theses, 2010-2019
In the Upper South, free blacks stood out as a living breathing contradiction to the institution of race-based slavery. State legislatures continuously debated and discussed the issue, and created a plethora of laws to restrict the freedoms given to African Americans. However, through a comparison of two piedmont locales, Bedford County, Virginia, and Washington County, Virginia, this thesis reveals the flexibility of execution of state laws on the ground. The work argues that state laws did not necessarily dictate black experiences in freedom. Instead, free black experience can be shown through the ways that whites enforced the laws, a process …