Race to the Frontier: White Flight And Western Expansion

Product Description Why did so many thousands of settlers pull up stakes and undertake the arduous journey to the frontier in 18th and 19th-century America?' While the desire for a more prosperous future figured prominently in their decisions, so did another, largely overlooked factor -- the presence of slavery and the growing number of blacks, both free and slave, in the eastern half of the United States. Poor white farmers, particularly those in the Upper South, found themselves displaced by the spreading of the plantation system. In order to survive economically they were chronically forced to move further inland. As they did so, they brought with them a deep animosity toward the enslaved blacks whom they blamed for this uprooting.Wherever these "plain folk" farmers subsequently settled -- in Kentucky, the free states north of the Ohio River, Missouri, and the outpost of Oregon, they sought to erect legal barriers to prevent slavery from taking hold as well as to deter the migration of free blacks who would otherwise compete for jobs and endanger white society. The pushing back of the frontier can be seen as an attempt to escape the complexities of a biracial nation and preserve white homogeneity by creating sanctuaries in these Western lands. The political struggle to establish more free states west of the Mississippi also reflects this goal: white nominally opposed to slavery, many "free staters" were most concerned about keeping all blacks at bay. "Race to the Frontier" is the first book to trace the impact of this racial hostility throughout the settlement of the West, from the days of colonial Virginia up to the Civil War. It clearly demonstrates how closely racial prejudice, economic growth, and geographical expansion have been entwined in American history. Review Race relations undoubtedly shaped the development of the United States. Much of the nation's early history hinges on the American construction of racial identity. Constitutional recognition of human chattel reinforced the subordination and dehumanization of people of African descent during the founding of the New Republic. King Cotton further solidified American racial attitudes during the 19th century. Whites Generally occupied a superior station in life relative to blacks by sheer virtue of skin color by the start of the American Civil War. Ironically, sectional and philosophical divisions among some white Americans led to a reduction in the divisions between blacks and whites. Or did they?Race to the Frontier provides readers with an innovative approach to understanding how race and racism shaped life along the western frontier following the Civil War. John V. H. Dippel's alternative view of westward expansion suggests that northern and midwestern whites who refused to accept blacks as equals migrated westward mainly to avoid effects of black in-migration. ....Abraham Lincoln recognized these fears. Dippel's analysis of Lincoln's bid for Pennsylvania Avenue illustrates how his view of blacks differed little from that of Henry Clay and other frontiersmen. Lincoln astutely observed the rising popularity of the Free Soil Party. In an effort to remain a politically viable presidential candidate, Lincoln had no choice but to fuse the Republican Party's antislavery plan with the idea of limiting land expansion to whites. Southerners viewed his presidential election as the final affront to the peculiar institution....Dippel's eloquent writing is both entertaining and informative. Impeccable research and historical analysis thoroughly support his conclusion that the consistent pattern of white dispersal across the United States reveals an effort to achieve ... a cohesive, homogeneous, and exclusive society. From colonial days onward, this impulse to flee from a far more complicated racial reality has been an integral, if largely unacknowledged, aspect of the American dream (p. 306). He makes excellent use of memoirs, newspapers, court records, legi