Further Reading: Chapter 6

Essential Texts

Inscoe, John C. Mountain Masters: Slavery and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989. The foundational study of slavery in the Appalachian South. Inscoe documents the slaveholding elite of western North Carolina — who they were, how many enslaved people they held, and how slavery shaped the region's politics through the secession crisis. This is the book that made it impossible for serious historians to maintain the "no slavery in the mountains" myth. Start here.

Dunaway, Wilma A. Slavery in the American Mountain South. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. The most comprehensive statistical study of slavery across the entire Appalachian region, covering Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Dunaway's meticulous use of census data, estate records, and other primary sources provides the quantitative foundation for the arguments in this chapter. Her findings on family separation and the hiring system are particularly important.

On Industrial Slavery in the Mountains

Dew, Charles B. Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. A brilliant microhistory of an iron-making complex in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, based on the extraordinarily detailed business records of the Weaver family. Dew reconstructs the daily lives of the enslaved ironworkers — their skills, their overwork earnings, their family lives, their resistance — with a level of specificity rarely achieved in slavery studies. Essential reading.

Stealey, John Edmund, III. The Antebellum Kanawha Salt Business and Western Markets. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993. The definitive study of the Kanawha salt industry, including detailed documentation of the enslaved labor force. Stealey covers the technology, the economics, and the labor system with equal rigor. Indispensable for the salt works case study.

On Free Black Communities

Berlin, Ira. Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974. The classic study of free Black life in the antebellum South, covering the entire region. Berlin's analysis of the legal restrictions, economic limitations, and community strategies of free Black people provides essential context for understanding the Appalachian free Black communities discussed in this chapter.

Franklin, John Hope. The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790–1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943. Reprinted 1995. An early and important study of free Black communities in North Carolina, including western North Carolina. Franklin documents the legal framework, the economic activities, and the social position of free Black people with characteristic thoroughness.

On the Erasure of Black Appalachian History

Turner, William H., and Edward J. Cabbell, eds. Blacks in Appalachia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985. The first major scholarly collection devoted to Black Appalachian history and experience. The essays cover slavery, free Black communities, the coalfield era, and contemporary identity. A groundbreaking work that opened the field.

Catte, Elizabeth. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia. Cleveland: Belt Publishing, 2018. A sharp, accessible critique of the myths and misrepresentations that distort public understanding of Appalachia, including the erasure of racial diversity. Catte's analysis of how the "white working-class" narrative has been deployed in contemporary politics is directly relevant to this chapter's argument about the function of the "no slavery" myth.

On Mountain Slavery and the Civil War

Noe, Kenneth W., and Shannon H. Wilson, eds. The Civil War in Appalachia: Collected Essays. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997. A collection of essays examining the Civil War in the mountain South, including several that address the relationship between slaveholding, class conflict, and Unionism. Essential background for connecting Chapter 6 to Chapter 11.

Inscoe, John C., and Gordon B. McKinney. The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. A detailed study of how the Civil War played out in western North Carolina — a region where slavery, Unionism, and Confederate loyalty coexisted in complex and often violent tension. Excellent for understanding how the slaveholding system described in this chapter shaped the war experience described in Chapter 11.

Primary Sources and Archival Collections

Rawick, George P., ed. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. 41 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972–1979. The published collection of WPA Slave Narratives, organized by state. The Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky volumes contain narratives from individuals enslaved in the mountain South. An indispensable source, used with appropriate caution about the circumstances of the interviews.

Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1901. Available in multiple modern editions and online. Washington's autobiography, which describes his childhood at the Kanawha salt works in Malden, West Virginia, is both a primary source on the post-emancipation salt industry and a foundational text of African American literature. Read alongside the case study for maximum impact.

On Race, Slavery, and American Identity

Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W.W. Norton, 1975. Morgan's classic study of how slavery and freedom developed together in colonial Virginia — the "American paradox" referenced in this chapter. His argument that white freedom was psychologically and politically dependent on Black slavery is essential for understanding the racial dynamics of Appalachian communities where most whites did not own enslaved people but all whites benefited from the racial hierarchy.

Baptist, Edward E. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 2014. Baptist's argument that slavery was not a pre-capitalist relic but a modern, innovative, capitalist enterprise is relevant to understanding the industrial slavery of the Kanawha salt works and the iron furnaces — operations that were as capitalist in their logic as any Northern factory.