Trans-Appalachian Frontier

by Rohrbough, Malcolm J.

• ISBN13: 9780253219329
• ISBN10: 0253219329
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-12-30
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

The first American frontier lay just beyond the Appalachian Mountains and along the Gulf Coast. Here, successive groups of pioneers built new societies and developed new institutions to cope with life in the wilderness. In this thorough revision of his classic account, Malcolm J. Rohrbough tells the dramatic story of these men and women from the first Kentucky settlements to the closing of the frontier. Rohrbough divides his narrative into major time periods designed to establish categories of description and analysis, presenting case studies that focus on the county, the town, the community, and the family, as well as politics and urbanization. He also addresses Spanish, French, and Native American traditions and the anomalous presence of African slaves in the making of this story.

Author Biography

Malcolm J. Rohrbough is Professor of History at the University of Iowa and co-editor (with Walter Nugent) of the Indiana University Press series A History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xiii
A Note on Citations, Quotations, Maps, and Place Names	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Across the Mountains	p. 17
The Struggle for Security	p. 22
The Search for Stability	p. 50
Security and Stability in the Territory Northwest of the Ohio	p. 82
The Widening Frontier, 1795-1815	p. 113
The Reach of Government and the Authority of Law Spread across the Western Country	p. 121
Diverse Economies Moving toward Commercial Ends	p. 154
Many Varied Societies Emerge across the Western Country	p. 188
The First Great Migration, 1815-1830	p. 223
Across the Old Northwest and into Missouri	p. 233
The Flowering of the Cotton Frontier	p. 274
The Enduring Frontiers	p. 311
Michigan: The Great Lakes Frontier	p. 316
Florida: A Sectional Frontier	p. 351
Arkansas: A Frontier More West than South	p. 388
The Second Great Migration, 1830-1850	p. 419
The New Counties of Alabama and Mississippi: A Frontier More South than West	p. 423
The Last Frontier of the Old Northwest: Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin	p. 455
The Trans-Appalachian West and the Nation	p. 489
Villages, Towns, and Cities Spread across the Western Country	p. 492
Changing Political Patterns across Three Generations	p. 528
The Trans-Appalachian West and the Nation	p. 556
Notes	p. 583
Bibliography	p. 637
Index	p. 656
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