From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee: A Study in Frontier Democracy

FROM FRONTIER TO PLANTATION IN TENNESSEE is the classic book by UVa professor of history Thomas Perkins Abernethy about the formative years of Tennessee and its early political leadership. Now republished in a quality paperback without underlines and distracting stray marks [NOTE: only in the Quid Pro Books edition, showing the colorful cover], it has been Digitally Remastered to restore missing parts of words, cleaner text, and more consistently legible footnotes.

Abernethy studied a time when Tennessee was the original Wild West and a laboratory for U.S. expansion and repopulation-the first new state born out of a territory. Answering the idealized histories that had uncritically praised the democracticizing effects of the Frontier in American history, Abernethy discusses such leaders as William Blount, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and William Carroll (the latter two seen as more the proponents of democracy than was Jackson, who by this time was a wealthy landowner, not the common man). Legends like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, and scores of land squatters and magnates, figure colorfully into the account. It was the political elites and land grabbers who ruled Tennessee from the time of the Revolution to the Civil War, not the pioneers, trappers, and farmers. Even Representative David Crockett's efforts to secure land for the common man led to a breach with Andrew Jackson, and he was largely run out of town to the Alamo. Jackson is less a hero than a human, especially when compared to his image in adoring biographies that existed at the time of this book and since: "The Arch-democrat-to-be was quite willing to make others pay for his mistakes."

The book's current relevance extends even to regions other than Tennessee and the early U.S. South, as the author captures a pattern of settlement-and the momentum from territory to statehood-that has informed much research into, and curiosity about, other frontiers in transition.

Part of the History and Heroes Series by Quid Pro Books, an independent academic press.

1117258862
From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee: A Study in Frontier Democracy

FROM FRONTIER TO PLANTATION IN TENNESSEE is the classic book by UVa professor of history Thomas Perkins Abernethy about the formative years of Tennessee and its early political leadership. Now republished in a quality paperback without underlines and distracting stray marks [NOTE: only in the Quid Pro Books edition, showing the colorful cover], it has been Digitally Remastered to restore missing parts of words, cleaner text, and more consistently legible footnotes.

Abernethy studied a time when Tennessee was the original Wild West and a laboratory for U.S. expansion and repopulation-the first new state born out of a territory. Answering the idealized histories that had uncritically praised the democracticizing effects of the Frontier in American history, Abernethy discusses such leaders as William Blount, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and William Carroll (the latter two seen as more the proponents of democracy than was Jackson, who by this time was a wealthy landowner, not the common man). Legends like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, and scores of land squatters and magnates, figure colorfully into the account. It was the political elites and land grabbers who ruled Tennessee from the time of the Revolution to the Civil War, not the pioneers, trappers, and farmers. Even Representative David Crockett's efforts to secure land for the common man led to a breach with Andrew Jackson, and he was largely run out of town to the Alamo. Jackson is less a hero than a human, especially when compared to his image in adoring biographies that existed at the time of this book and since: "The Arch-democrat-to-be was quite willing to make others pay for his mistakes."

The book's current relevance extends even to regions other than Tennessee and the early U.S. South, as the author captures a pattern of settlement-and the momentum from territory to statehood-that has informed much research into, and curiosity about, other frontiers in transition.

Part of the History and Heroes Series by Quid Pro Books, an independent academic press.

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From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee: A Study in Frontier Democracy

From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee: A Study in Frontier Democracy

by Thomas Perkins Abernethy
From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee: A Study in Frontier Democracy

From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee: A Study in Frontier Democracy

by Thomas Perkins Abernethy

Paperback

$30.24 
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Overview

FROM FRONTIER TO PLANTATION IN TENNESSEE is the classic book by UVa professor of history Thomas Perkins Abernethy about the formative years of Tennessee and its early political leadership. Now republished in a quality paperback without underlines and distracting stray marks [NOTE: only in the Quid Pro Books edition, showing the colorful cover], it has been Digitally Remastered to restore missing parts of words, cleaner text, and more consistently legible footnotes.

Abernethy studied a time when Tennessee was the original Wild West and a laboratory for U.S. expansion and repopulation-the first new state born out of a territory. Answering the idealized histories that had uncritically praised the democracticizing effects of the Frontier in American history, Abernethy discusses such leaders as William Blount, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and William Carroll (the latter two seen as more the proponents of democracy than was Jackson, who by this time was a wealthy landowner, not the common man). Legends like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, and scores of land squatters and magnates, figure colorfully into the account. It was the political elites and land grabbers who ruled Tennessee from the time of the Revolution to the Civil War, not the pioneers, trappers, and farmers. Even Representative David Crockett's efforts to secure land for the common man led to a breach with Andrew Jackson, and he was largely run out of town to the Alamo. Jackson is less a hero than a human, especially when compared to his image in adoring biographies that existed at the time of this book and since: "The Arch-democrat-to-be was quite willing to make others pay for his mistakes."

The book's current relevance extends even to regions other than Tennessee and the early U.S. South, as the author captures a pattern of settlement-and the momentum from territory to statehood-that has informed much research into, and curiosity about, other frontiers in transition.

Part of the History and Heroes Series by Quid Pro Books, an independent academic press.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781610271554
Publisher: Quid Pro, LLC
Publication date: 10/18/2012
Pages: 410
Product dimensions: 5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x 0.84(d)

About the Author

Thomas Perkins Abernethy (1890-1975) was a distinguished Southern historian and a teacher at universities including Vanderbilt, Alabama, and Chattanooga. Most famously, he taught at the University of Virginia for more than three decades and held the Richmond Alumni chair at UVA's Corcoran Department of History, where he also led the department as its chairman for many years. His books on Tennessee, Alabama, Aaron Burr's conspiracy, and Westward expansion have influenced generations of historians and are accessibly written for everyone.
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