Origins of the Old South: Revolution, Slavery, and Changes in Southern Society, 1776-1800

Origins of the Old South:
Revolution, Slavery, and Changes in Southern Society, 1776-1800
Matthew P. Spooner
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
2015

© 2015
Matthew P. Spooner
All Rights Reserved

ABSTRACT
Origins of the Old South:
Revolution, Slavery, and Changes in Southern Society, 1776-1800
Matthew Spooner
The American Revolution and its aftermath posed the greatest challenge to the
institution of slavery since the first Africans landed in Jamestown. Revolutionary
defenses of the natural equality of man provided ammunition for generations of men and
women opposed to racial subordination while the ideological strains of the struggle
sounded the death knell for slavery in Northern states and led significant numbers of
Southerners to question the morality and safety of slaveholding. Most importantly, the
bloody and chaotic war in the South provided an unprecedented opportunity for slaves to
challenge their bondage as tens of thousands of black men and women fled to the British,
the swamps, or the relative anonymity of the cities.
Merging social, military, and economic history, "Origins of the Old South"
examines how, in the attempt to rebuild their society from the ravages of war, black and
white Southerners together created the new and historically distinct slave society of the
“Old South.” The first two chapters of the dissertation demonstrate how the struggle to
contain the disorders of a civil war amongst half a million enslaved African-Americans
transformed the Southern states—the scene of the war’s bloodiest fighting after 1778—
into a crucible in which men, land, and debt melted into capital. State governments
redistributed thousands of slaves and millions of acres of land to purchase supplies and
raise troops from within a weary populace; the estates of many of the South’s most
important planters, comprising roughly ten percent of the region’s real and personal

wealth, were confiscated and sold at auction at a fraction of their value; and wartime
prestige coupled with the departure of prominent loyalists allowed a legion of “new men”
to come into control of the new state governments.
The result was the ascendance of a new class of merchant planters, who pushed
the locus of Southern development inland, and major changes in the contours of black life
in the region. The remaining three chapters of the dissertation examine these twinned
consequences of the Revolution over the following three decades. Chapter three follows
the experience of enslaved men and women after the war, tracing their movement
throughout the Atlantic World and across the boundary between slavery and freedom
during the conflict. Chapter four then looks at the impact of the region's ill-fated
antislavery push during and immediately after the war, while chapter five shows how
early national state governments drove slavery's expansion and closed the revolutionary
moment in the process.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
List of Abbreviations Used i
Acknowledgements iii
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Disorder, Slave Property, and the American
Revolution in the Southern States 20
Chapter 2: The Spoils of War: Slaves, Debt
Slaves, Debt, and Social Change in the Revolutionary South 65
Chapter 3: Shades of Freedom: War, Mobility,
and the Ironies of Liberty 120
Chapter 4: The Short, Unhappy Life of Antislavery
Sentiment in the Post-Revolutionary South 172
Chapter 5: Canals, Courts, and the Twilight of 231
the American Revolution
Coda 271
Bibliography 274

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED
Catt. – Catterall, Helen Tunnicliff, ed. Judicial Cases Concerning American
Slavery and the Negro. 8 vols. Reprint; New York: Negro Universities
Press, 1968.
CSR – Saunders, William L., et. al., eds. The Colonial and Early State Records
of North Carolina. 26 vols. Raleigh, NC: P.W. Hale, 1886-1914.
CVSP – Walker, R. F., et. al., ed. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, and Other
Manuscripts. 11 volumes. Richmond: J.H. O’Bannon, 1875-93.
DUL – Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC.
GHA – Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, GA.
GSA – State Archives of Georgia, Morrow, GA.
HLP – Laurens, Henry. The Papers of Henry Laurens. Ed. David R. Chesnutt.
16 vols. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1968-2002.
LiVa – Library of Virginia, Richmond, VA
LOC – Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
LCC – Papers of the Loyalist Claims Commission, The National Archives, Kew,
UK.
NSA – North Carolina Department of History and Archives, Raleigh, NC.
NYHS – New York Historical Society, New York, NY.
NYPL – New York Public Library, New York, NY.
RRG – Candler, Allan D. ed. The Revolutionary Records of the State of Georgia.
3 Vols. Atlanta, GA: The Franklin-Turner Company, 1908-10.
SCDAH – South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC.
SCHS – South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, SC.

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SCL – South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.
SHC – Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North
Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC.
UVA – Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.
VHS – Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA.
WCL – William Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I can only hope that some of what is contained within my dissertation reflects the
extraordinary help and guidance I have received these past long years. I could not have
hoped to receive the support I did from so many generous and brilliant people and I will
be forever grateful.
My career as a historian began my first semester at Bowdoin College in Patrick
Rael’s introductory lecture on the relationship between war and society. In his lectures
and over a chessboard Patrick showed me the excitement to be found in puzzling the
problems of the past and the power of history to understand the injustices of the present.
During my four years at Bowdoin he was both a mentor and friend, and much of my
success (though none of my faults) are owed to him and to others on Bowdoin’s faculty,
especially William Watterson, Scott Sehon, and Dallas Denery.
I could not have written more than a few lines of my dissertation without the
financial support of numerous foundations and the help of the many archivists and
historians I met during my three years of sojourning through the southeastern states. For
all the wonders of the digital humanities there will never be a replacement for speaking to
the scholars and thinkers who work in our archives. I must particularly thank—among
many others—Laura Clark Brown at the University of North Carolina’s Southern
Historical Collection; Jeffrey Crow at the State Archives of North Carolina; Meg
McSweeney, William Tatum, and Kathie Ludwig at the David Library of the American
Revolution; and Graham Duncan and Brian Cuthrell at the University of South Carolina’s
South Caroliniana Library.