Southern Scoundrels - by Jeff Forret & Bruce E Baker (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The history of capitalist development in the United States is long, uneven, and overwhelmingly focused on the northern states. Recent years have witnessed an explosion of works on capitalism in the South. Still, these have primarily been macroeconomic studies emphasizing the role of the cotton economy in global trading networks. Less understood is how capitalism took root and functioned in all its variated facets in the nineteenth-century South. This volume explores the lesser-known aspects of those processes: the shady and unscrupulous peddlers, preachers, slave traders, war profiteers, thieves, and marginal men who seized the available opportunities to get ahead and made the southern economy what it was. The ten chapters of 'Southern Scoundrels: Grifters and Graft in the Nineteenth-Century South' eschew dry economic theory in favor of narrative storytelling as engaging and seductive as the set of shifty and corrupt characters under examination. The essays cover the chronological sweep of nineteenth-century southern history, from the antebellum era, through the tumultuous and chaotic Civil War years, and into Reconstruction and beyond. The geographic coverage is equally broad, with chapters encompassing the Chesapeake, South Carolina, the Lower Mississippi Valley, Texas, Missouri, and Appalachia. 'Southern Scoundrels' offers a series of social histories indicative of the nineteenth-century southern economy and the changes wrought by the capitalist transformation. Tracing that story through the kinds of smarmy individuals who made it happen makes it accessible to a wide range of readers interested in the region's history"--

Book Synopsis

The history of capitalist development in the United States is long, uneven, and overwhelmingly focused on the North. Macroeconomic studies of the South have primarily emphasized the role of the cotton economy in global trading networks. Until now, few in-depth scholarly works have attempted to explain how capitalism in the South took root and functioned in all of its diverse--and duplicitous--forms. Southern Scoundrels explores the lesser-known aspects of the emergence of capitalism in the region: the shady and unscrupulous peddlers, preachers, slave traders, war profiteers, thieves, and marginal men who seized available opportunities to get ahead and, in doing so, left their mark on the southern economy.

Eschewing conventional economic theory, this volume features narrative storytelling as engaging and seductive as the cast of shifty characters under examination. Contributors cover the chronological sweep of the nineteenth-century South, from the antebellum era through the tumultuous and chaotic Civil War years, and into Reconstruction and beyond. The geographic scope is equally broad, with essays encompassing the Chesapeake, South Carolina, the Lower Mississippi Valley, Texas, Missouri, and Appalachia. These essays offer a series of social histories on the nineteenth-century southern economy and the changes wrought by capitalist transformation. Tracing that story through the kinds of oily individuals who made it happen, Southern Scoundrels provides fascinating insights into the region's hucksters and its history.

Contents
Introduction, Jeff Forret and Bruce E. Baker
"Preachers and Peddlers: Credit and Belief in the Flush Times," John Lindbeck
"A Gentleman and a Scoundrel? Alexander McDonald, Financial Reputation, and Slavery's Capitalism," Alexandra J. Finley
"'How Deeply They Weed into the Pockets' Slave Traders, Bank Speculators, and the Anatomy of a Chesapeake Wildcat, 1840-1843," Jeff Forret
"Bernard Kendig: Orchestrating Fraud in the Market and the Courtroom," Maria R. Montalvo
"William A. Britton v. Benjamin F. Butler: Occupied New Orleans, Confiscation, and the Disruption of the Cotton Trade in Wartime Natchez," Jeff Strickland
"Devils at the Doorstep: Confederate Judges, Masters of Sequestration," Rodney J. Steward
"'Irresistibly Impelled toward Illegal Appropriation' The Civil War Schemes of William G. Cheeney," Jimmy L. Bryan, Jr.
"Das Kapital on Tchoupitoulas Street: The Marketing of Stolen Goods and the Reserve Army of Labor in Reconstruction-Era New Orleans," Bruce E. Baker
"The Violent Lives of William Faucett," Elaine S. Frantz
"Eureka! Law and Order for Sale in Gilded Age Appalachia," T. R. C. Hutton

Review Quotes

Come to these absorbing essays for their rip-roaring tales of fraud, but stay for the persuasive case they make: every market transaction in the nineteenth-century South involved people trying to buy cheap, sell dear, compete relentlessly, litigate successfully, and leave the other guy holding the bag. That was capitalism, and these scoundrels were good at it.--Brian P. Luskey, author of "Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America"

Counterfeiters, horse thieves, Confederate judges, slave traders, swindlers, mountain detectives, speculators, and preachers, oh my! These essays show how unethical, unscrupulous and even illegal activities thrived in the unregulated nineteenth-century economy. More than just enjoyable, but peculiar stories, the narratives highlight vital features in the complex development of Southern capitalism.--Joshua R. Greenberg, author of "Bank Notes and Shinplasters: The Rage for Paper Money in the Early Republic"

Here is the seamy underside of the 19th-century South told through its grifters, scrappers, lockpickers, embezzlers, bought judges, wildcat bankers, slave traders, bounty hunters, and ladies prepared to lie under oath. They were products of a world built on slavery and yet their grifts flourished even in the decades after slavery collapsed. As this volume shows, these liars' practices turned other people's sweat into private equity, practices of appropriation at the heart of American capitalism.--Scott Reynolds Nelson, author of "A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Financial Disasters"

Too often ignored as peripheral or relegated to the realm of lore, the scoundrels and grifters highlighted in this volume reveal the centrality of informal networks to the southern economy. This is a delightful set of essays sure to provoke and enlighten.--Kathleen M. Hilliard, author of "Masters, Slaves, and Exchange: Power's Purchase in the Old South"

About the Author

Jeff Forret is professor of history and Distinguished Faculty Research Fellow at Lamar University. His books include Williams' Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and His Cargo of Black Convicts and Slave against Slave: Plantation Violence in the Old South, winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize.

Bruce E. Baker is reader in American history at Newcastle University. He has published widely on topics related to southern history, including lynching, Reconstruction, historical memory, New Orleans, the cotton trade, and crime.