Inscoe

Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina. By John C. Inscoe. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989.

John Inscoe takes on more than a century’s worth of historical and popular assumptions about Southern Appalachia in Mountain Masters. In both history and literature these Southern “highlands” were believed to almost untouched by the institution of slavery and populated alternately by backward mountain folk or by rugged individualists little different from their ancestors who fought at King’s Mountain. “An analysis of the antebellum social and economic life of Carolina highlanders indicates that these people were far from being the deprived, isolated, self-centered mountaineers depicted in later accounts,” Inscoe argues. “On the eve of the Civil War, their society was a vigorous, complex, and growing one in which slavery played a small but very basic part” (6).

The fifteen Appalachian counties of western North Carolina was marked by diverse agriculture, Inscoe explains, and its farms drew high praise from visitors to the region. Many inhabitants took part only in subsistence agriculture (some by choice), yet wagon roads also provided access to ready markets in Georgia, South Carolina, and the rest of North Carolina. Furthermore, parts of the region like Asheville were already popular tourist destinations for their scenery and cool mountain air. Slavery was hardly “negligible” as later accounts would claim; Inscoe finds that across the region slaves averaged ten percent of the region, with variations as wide as 2% to 31% among different counties. The consensus seems to be that highland slaveholders allowed their slaves greater freedom of movement than the rest of the South, particularly those entrusted with shepherding for months at a time. Inscoe surmises masters treated their slaves relatively better in the North Carolina highlands than elsewhere, though without venturing into slavery apologia. Instead he suggests the region’s small black population made highlanders less fearful of slave violence or revolt.

Inscoe finds there was little animosity amongst non-slaveholding highlanders to either slavery or slaveholders. This was not only due to the availability of hired out slave labor, he suggests, but also to the political nature of the region. North Carolina highlanders elected disproportional high numbers of slaveholders, but Inscoe argues that this political elite did not constitute a true planter class since they were hardly plantation-based grandees living far above their yeomen neighbors. Furthermore, slaveholders and non-slaveholders were united in their resentment of their state government in the east. Internal improvements were widely popular in the mountain counties and were campaign planks of both the region’s Whigs and Democrats, yet the government in Raleigh largely ignored the North Carolina highlands. This had significance for the region’s stance as the nation’s sectional crisis heated up. Inscoe argues highlanders had both a strong regional identity and strong Southern identity, and it was not hard for western Carolinians who saw themselves as underdogs in dealing with an unsympathetic state government to accept the idea of the South as underdog to a hostile federal government. The region remained a bastion of Unionism up until Lincoln’s call for volunteers, but Inscoe argues this Unionism represented “a means to an end, rather than an end in itself,” believed by Carolinians to be the best way of protecting slavery and other private interests. Inscoe finds that some of the strongest Unionists were often also those with the most slaves and that western North Carolinians sent proportionately more men to fight for the Confederacy than the rest of the state.

John Inscoe offers a fascinating portrait of a specific Southern region but without losing sight of its place within the South and the antebellum United States. Furthermore, he offers a convincingly argued thesis which persuasively challenges entrenched assumptions about the social and political character of North Carolina’s Appalachia. Inscoe’s text is highly readable and marked by concise, to-the-point chapters, yet Inscoe also manages to consult and speak to Southern historiography effectively as well using statistical evidence effectively. Mountain Masters as a volume is generously illustrated with charts, maps, and period illustrations of life in the North Carolina highlands.

Perhaps the most important contributions to students of the Old South and the Civil War are Inscoe’s findings that western North Carolina saw little resentment between slaveholders and non-slaveholders and that Southern Unionism did not automatically translate to hostility to the Confederate. Of course, we know this was the case especially with the rest of the Upper South, but we still need to reconcile this with what we know about the Civil War loyalties of Southern Appalachia. Statistics show strong correlations between slave ownership and support for secession elsewhere in the South, and eastern Tennessee and western Virginia were famously strong bastions of anti-Confederate Unionism (which is why we have the state of West Virginia). Inscoe unfortunately does not detail western North Carolina’s Civil War experience, but given the specific situation he describes in the Carolina highlands, perhaps we need to look beyond the scope of Mountain Masters to understand why Civil War loyalties were apparently so different in the mountains of Tennessee and Virginia.

Jonathan Steplyk

Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina. By John C. Inscoe. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1989. 264 pp.

John C. Incoe’s Mountain Masters, slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina counters the traditional notion about the attitudes of Carolinian highlanders before the Civil War. Historians have assumed that because these mountaineers lacked a significant number of slaves, they were more or less dragged along into the Civil War by the rest of their state. Inscoe points out that the egalitarian and antislavery image of the region rose during the war and continued even into modern scholarship. He asserts that this image was simply not true. Although Western Carolinians were for the most part without slaves, they identified themselves with the cause of states’ rights and the South in general. They were not exploited by their eastern brethren, and were not drug into the war on the coattails of King Cotton and the Deep South. Western Carolinians followed their slave holding political leaders, whom the author has dubbed “mountain masters,” into secession not because of a love for slavery, but because their leaders had fought for their constituents needs for decades before the Civil War. This transition to secession resulted from loyalty to their political leaders and the common defense of Southern state rights.

Inscoe begins by describing the livelihood of the mountaineers of North Carolina. He shows how most farmers made money or trade goods off of excess grain sold to livestock herders who used the region to run their animals from northern farms to southern plantations. The richer inhabitants of the region diversified their business endeavors, ranging from hotel and resort ownership to gold mining and the slave trade. These richer families often benefited from being the first settlers of the region. Not only did they have the best land, but they also had the most prestige. Of course these same mountain master families became the leading slave owners in the mountain counties, and because of their wealth and status they served as Western North Carolina’s political leaders.

The mountain masters at times fought against their own class in matters of state politics, and served their constituents’ wishes within the federal government rather than pursuing personal gain. According to Inscoe, the western politicians constantly fought against slaveholders interests that were pursued by the eastern politicians. Mountain masters pursued platforms which called for the elimination of land requirements to vote, and for a tax system which forced the rich slave owners and poorer small farmers to pay an equal percentage rather than an equal amount. These were both issues that would directly hurt the power and wealth of the ruling western politicians. These leaders further cemented their loyalty base with the fight for internal improvements. Eastern politicians balked at the cost of improvements that would mainly benefit the western counties. The mountaineers required better infrastructure to continue trade and stay competitive with other states. Little progress was made in this matter before the Civil War, but when the secession debates began, western Carolinians remembered their mountain masters’ struggle for western rights.

At the national level, the mountaineer representatives were for the most part Unionists to begin with. North Carolinians in general were split about secession, as state would become a stomping ground for armies. Western politicians briefly favored a new union of the middle states of the United States, discarding the far reaches of the political spectrum: the Deep South and New England. Mountaineers were happy that their politicians chose the Union over their slave holding brethren to the South. However, with the call for 75,000 volunteers by Abraham Lincoln and the shots fired at Fort Sumter in April of 1861, a drastic change in opinion happened at all levels of Western Carolinian society. Mountaineers felt disgusted by the use of force to coerce the South back into the Union, leading to sympathy for the Confederacy and eventually secession. Inscoe believes that despite their anti-slavery tendencies, racism and anger towards the North helped motivate the Western Carolinians to follow the political aims of their mountain masters. In fact, all of the Western Carolinians chosen to represent their respective counties at the secession convention were slave holders. Inscoe points out that if mountaineers were so opposed to being led into a war by the slaveocracy, then why would they choose slaveholders as their representatives in this crucial decision?

The author provides an interesting study of politics, society, and business in North Carolina’s western counties. His conclusions for the most part are sound, and provide the historian with a more logical reason for the western counties fighting enthusiastically in the Civil War. Some portions of Inscoe’s work into the social structures of the western counties could do without the vague generalizations he makes; however, these do not hurt his main thesis.

Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina. By John C. Inscoe. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1989. 264 pp.

In Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina, University of Georgia historian John C. Inscoe argues that Carolina highlanders before the Civil War were “far from being the deprived, isolated, self-centered mountaineers depicted in later accounts,” (p. 6) but, rather, “reacted to the perceived threats to the South with fully as much interest, concern, and commitment as did any other group of southerners.” (p. xiv.)

Driving that “interest, concern, and commitment” was a cultural, political and economic elite that Inscoe dubs “mountain masters,” almost all of whom owned slaves. But the “mountain masters” had interests and occupations that went well beyond slaveholding; they were “merchants, hotel or resort owners, land speculators, manufacturers, bankers, lawyers, or some combination thereof,” (p. 8), who were “more actively and integrally a part of the communities over which they presided” (p. 113) than were the “planter elites” of the Cotton South. Indeed, in the decades preceding the Civil War, the “mountain masters” became the “commercial lynchpins” (p. 263) of a booming western North Carolina economy that was based on selling the produce and livestock of highlanders to the Lower South as well as hosting summer vacationers from that region. Such commercial connections strengthened highlanders’ ties with their fellow southerners much more than did slavery.

As Inscoe puts it, slavery played a “small but very basic part” (p. 6) in Carolina highlander society. While “less than ten percent of the Carolina mountain populace consisted of slaves and . . . ninety percent of white western Carolinians owned no slaves,” (p. 9), the region elected a far greater percentage of slaveholders as state legislators than did the more slavery-intense eastern portion of the state. Moreover, the region’s congressman throughout most of the 1840s and 1850s was Thomas L. Clingman who, though not a slaveholder, was nevertheless one of “the most proslavery and prosouthern of antebellum congressmen.” (p. 185.) As the secession crisis heated up in the 1850s, Clingman and other political leaders convinced non-slaveholder highlanders that the abolition of slavery would produce more economic and social chaos than civil war. And during the debate in the highlands preceding the February 28, 1861 statewide vote on whether to convene a “secession convention,” as Inscoe notes, “unionists played on [the] fear of slavery’s demise just as effectively as secessionists did.” (p. 256.) Thus, although 59 percent of highlanders and 50.3 percent of North Carolinians as a whole voted against the convention, it is a “fallacy” to equate “unionism with antislavery sentiment.” (p. 238.)

As Inscoe explains, “[f]or the vast majority of North Carolina’s mountain residents, a commitment to the Union was a means toward an end, rather than the end in itself,” and that there were “limits beyond which that commitment cannot endure.” (p. 239.) Though many North Carolinians felt that South Carolina and its Deep South allies had rashly and needlessly precipitated a crisis through secession, President Lincoln’s call for troops to suppress the rebellion on April 15, 1861 was almost universally viewed as a “coercive” move and the state quickly joined the Confederacy.

Carolina highlanders in particular resented this “coercion” by the federal government since they had long fought against the dominant eastern establishment of their own state over such issues as equal suffrage, “ad valorem” taxation, and state aid for internal improvements. They were thus “already accustomed to the role of regional underdog” (p. 209) and “promptly recognized the parallels to their plight in the larger sectional tensions between North and South.” (p. 264.) Consequently, their “character as westerners was smoothly and naturally transformed into an equally defensive stance as southerners.” (p. 264.) And leading the way during that transition were the “mountain masters” who had faithfully supported the area in all of its intrastate squabbles and thus “effectively demonstrated [their] loyalty and usefulness to the region and its people.” (p. 263.)

Inscoe’s main thesis is persuasive and supported by thorough research in both primary and secondary sources. However, while the last few chapters of Mountain Masters work well as political history, the same cannot be said for the social history that dominates the first few chapters. Inscoe has been criticized for painting an overly benign portrait of “mountain master” slavery based on evidence that he admits is largely “subjective and impressionistic.” (p. 102.) Not only that, but the “samples” he generalizes from are frequently too small. For example, he notes that “mountain masters” made humanitarian provisions for their slaves in 15 out of 18 wills that he studied (pp. 103-104). That would be 18 wills in a region where there were 1,877 slaveholders in 1860 alone (p. 84.) A small sample indeed!

In Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina, John C. Inscoe argues that the stereotypical view of western North Carolina as a backward society largely separated from the issues that culminated in the secession of the Confederate states from the Union is incorrect. Instead, the author reveals a complex economic structure based on firmly established ties to the plantation economy of the south. The myth that residents of the Appalachia region owned no slaves and shunned contact with other regions of the country is refuted by evidence of a thriving economy based on farming, livestock, mining and trade. Contemporary accounts of slaveholding in the region belie claims that slavery did not exist in the mountain regions of North Carolina or play a significant role in the economy of the region. In fact, the roots of slavery ran deep into the regional economy.

Slaveholders in western North Carolina constituted a small, but influential, segment of Appalachian society. Estimates place the percentage of slaveowners at ten percent of the regional population. Slaveholders typically engaged in a diverse mixture of business ventures, spanning a wide range of professional, mercantile and agricultural trades. Tourism also played a significant role in many slaveholders enterprises. Contemporary accounts document the dominance of slaves in administrative and operational management of tourist resorts in the region. After the seasonal influx of tourists departed, slaves received new assignments in other areas of economic production. Thus, a porter working at a resort during the summer might find himself mining ore in the winter months. Inscoe argues that the dominance of elite slaveholders in political and economic affairs galvanized members of the lower classes behind pro-slavery agendas in the region. Though comparatively few white’s owned slaves, the economy of the region relied heavily on trade with the antebellum plantation south. Farmers sold surpluses of goods to markets in regions that directly profited from slavery. Thus, mountain economies indirectly profited from the institution of slavery. Abolition of slavery represented a threat to the Appalachian economy, even without the presence of large numbers of slaves.

Slavery in western North Carolina differed from that of the plantation economy in the south. Slaveowners endeavored to keep slave family units together, though a child might be sold to a friend or family at an early age. Harsh discipline was frowned upon by Appalachian society and at least one owner was tried and hung for killing his slave. Inscoe argues that slaveowners exercised a “benevolent paternalism” in their dealings with slaves.

Central the thesis of Inscoe’s argument is the support for secession within western North Carolina. The author demonstrates that the influence of elite slaveowners, close economic ties to the plantation economy of the south, and the inherent racism of the region combined to win support of secession from the Union despite class divisions and slaveholding status within the region. The author delves extensively into the career of Congressman Thomas L. Clingman, one of the South’s most staunch supporters of slavery. The political positions of Whigs and Democrats within the south and the issues of internal improvements, ad valorem taxation, and free suffrage are explored in depth by Inscoe. Inscoe argues that though the population of Appalachia questioned the timing of South Carolina’s secession from the Union, they ultimately felt compelled to join the Confederate movement to maintain a economic security.

Inscoe’s work demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the history of the region. His knowledge of political and economic issues effectively demonstrates the political turmoil in the region leading to the Civil War. The author’s research is extensive. However, primary source material relies heavily on the records and writings of the slaveholding elite and the economic apparatus that served them. As a result, contemporary evidence from the lower classes is lacking and leaves questions regarding the attitudes of the majority of the population.

Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina. By John C. Inscoe. (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, c. 1989. Pp. xvi, 348. $17.00, ISBN 0-87049-597-6.)

Oftentimes a discussion of the antebellum Appalachian South conjures stereotypical views of the inhabitants. Their characterization encompasses a backward, ignorant rural class void of political or cultural cohesiveness. John Inscoe's research of Western North Carolina dispels the myths that antebellum South Appalachia had no slaves, resided in poverty and lacked the economic and social diversity to form "distinguishable class hierarchy" (2). Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina blends the economic, political, and social strands of the western counties of North Carolina to produce a solid scholarly work that illuminates the characteristics of the "other South."

John Inscoe, professor of history at the University of Georgia, addresses the reasons behind western Carolinians' responses to slavery, commerce, and secession. He admits that his initial hypothesis was enveloped in the aforementioned stereotypes of southern Appalachians. He intended to "examine the impact of the Civil War on a part of the South largely isolated and alienated from the rest of the region" (xiv). What his research revealed was a diverse class structure with its foundations in slavery, agriculture, and merchant economies. The economic and social variations allowed for the formation of strong community ties and a slave institution that was not bound by the norms of the Deep South's slave culture.

Western cities such as Asheville, contrary to previous historians' assertions, maintained a viable link to the antebellum slavery era, thereby creating cultural ties that were distinctly southern. The scarcity of slaves in the western region of North Carolina did not hinder great economies and political impact from forming. Quite the contrary, a diverse system of agriculture complemented by a merchant class helped to create a thriving economy. The lack of a major cash crop such as cotton opened varied markets for the products of western North Carolina. The region supplied apples, grapes, forest and livestock products to Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. Doctors, lawyers, and a strong tourist business aided the commercial economy in western North Carolina. People flocked to the area to enjoy the clean air and beautiful scenery. Tourists may have been surprised by the relationships between slaveholders and their slaves.

The relatively small slave population in western North Carolina gave rise to a different master/slave relationship. By 1860 the fifteen westernmost counties included a black population of 10.2 percent (62). Slaves worked in the mines and were hired out to complete public works projects and assist family members or neighbors. During the tourist season, blacks often served as guides for hunting and hiking excursions. This relative freedom that some slaves experienced produced more independent blacks. For the most part this did not adversely affect the relationships with their masters. Inscoe depicts how most slaves who traveled to California with their master, to work in the gold mines, chose to return home with their masters. He maintains that although slave life was undesirable, in western North Carolina slaves had a "better life" than their Deep South counterparts. Inscoe's use of Frederick Law Olmstead and other white peoples' written perceptions to gauge the status of slavery in the region may be suspect. Nonetheless, the author's sources do indicate that mountain masters employed less stringent disciplinary measures and attempted to keep slave families intact. Harsh treatment of slaves was frowned upon and an incident occurred where a slaveholder was hanged for beating his 60 year-old slave to death. The small slave holdings in western North Carolina led to "intimacy and greater personal regard between owner and owned" (104). Inscoe debunks the notion that mountaineers were isolated and therefore unfamiliar with the nuances of the slavery and black people. The lack of large plantations and the varied agrarian economy did not warrant the often hostile and cruel interaction with slaves that existed in the Deep South.

Last, Inscoe analyzes the political environment of the region. He depicts an active political region concerned with national and state legislation insofar as it affected local needs. During the 1850s western North Carolina's "sectional" interests were based on the differences between themselves and the eastern portion of their state. The differences were based on the geographical distinctions: occupancy at polar ends of the state, lack of transportation, terrain and climate (139). These differences produced effects on agricultural production, economic conditions, and lifestyles. Mountaineers felt discriminated against because eastern North Carolina was the seat of state government and insensitive to their regional concerns. The mountaineers fought hard to close the gap of injustices. The three areas that mountaineers spent most of the 1850s addressing were equal suffrage, ad valorem taxation, and state aid for internal improvements. The western region of the state fought hardest to pass the ad valorem tax bill (to no avail) and procuring a fair piece of state monies to improve their infrastructure.

The route of the railroad caused the most grief for the mountaineers. The region waited for ten years to see progress on railway transportation while haggling over proposed routes dominated the legislature. Inscoe describes bitter political battles and discusses the political nuances that developed in mountain region.

After Andrew Jackson left the presidency, the Whig party dominated the region and the area was referred to as "the Gibraltar of Whig principles" (133). Despite the Whig stronghold, Democrats operated within western North Carolina and by 1850 the two parties maintained an even hold in mountain politics. The growing national friction between Northand South shifted the focal point of western Carolinian politicians from their differences with the eastern portion of their state to their identities as southerners. The road toward expanded sectionalism began with the ardent proslavery rhetoric of Thomas Lanier Clingman. Clingman owned no slaves and represented the smallest slaveholding county in western North Carolina in Congress, but his extremist southern-rights ideologies and broad band of support within the region illustrates the "strong southern identity and sectional loyalty of mountain voters" (182). While the majority of mountaineers desired to stay in the Union, the secession of the southern states ushered in strong support for the Confederacy because the people of western North Carolina "felt awful southern."