A Family Venture: Men and Women on the Southern Frontier

by Cashin, Joan E.

• ISBN13: 9780801849640
• ISBN10: 0801849640
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-09-01
• Publisher: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV PRESS

Summary

This book is about the different ways that men and women experienced migration from the Southern seaboard to the antebellum Southern frontier. Based upon extensive research in planter family papers, Cashin studies how the sexes went to the frontier with diverging agendas: men tried to escape the family, while women tried to preserve it. On the frontier, men usually settled far from relatives, leaving women lonely and disoriented in a strange environment. As kinship networks broke down, sex roles changed, and relations between men and women became more inequitable. Migration also changed race relations, because many men abandoned paternalistic race relations and abused their slaves. However, many women continued to practice paternalism, and a few even sympathized with slaves as they never had before. Drawing on rich archival sources, Cashin examines the decision of families to migrate, the effects of migration on planter family life, and the way old ties were maintained and new ones formed.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 3
The Ties of Nature: The Planter Family in the Seaboard	p. 9
In Search of Manly Independence: The Migration Decision	p. 32
A New World: Journey and Settlement	p. 53
A Little More of This World's Goods: Family, Kinship, and Economics	p. 78
To Live Like Fighting Cocks: Independence, Sex Roles, and Slavery	p. 99
Conclusion	p. 119
A Note on the Tables	p. 122
Tables	p. 126
Notes	p. 144
Index	p. 195
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