A healthy democracy does not just look like this. It looks like this. Americans can see democracy at work. Public thrives. And informed straight from the sources on cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. From the Nations Capital to wherever you are. Because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. Good evening, everyone. I am Vice President of democracy initiatives here for the history center. I am sittingng here tonight with three great scholars. We are joined by scott nelson. Three of many contributors to this new volume. A new history of the American South. It just came out a few weeks ago each are professors of history. Each have different areas of expertise. We have a lot of ground to cover tonight. I will briefly introduce them and we will jump right in. The editor of this wonderful volume, at the university of North Carolina at chapel hill. Welcome from North Carolina. Appreciate you being here. Early American History at the university of florida and drove up hereon from gainesville to jn us. We are very grateful for you being here tonight. We have scott nelson who is a Georgia Athletics Association of history at the university of georgia. If yourr member from athens tody , thank you for being here with us today, scott. Like i said, this book covers a lot of ground. It goes back several years and takes us close to the present. It truly is a comprehensive history at the south. With so many contributors, so much ground to cover our thought we would talk with questions to the editor. How did this project initially come out . And editor from the university of North Carolina came to me two decades ago. [laughter] suggested that it was time to have a new interpretive history of the American South. And i was keen to do it, but life intervened and it took longer, it took longer than i would haveen expected. Part of the challenge was we wanted to pull together a team of really great scholars, i hope they wont be offended, we wanted mid to late career scholars. [laughter] but it took us a while. A little further in our careers now. [laughter] but, in any case, the goal was to get people who would have fresh things to say about the south, try to get the authors to Work Together collaboratively. So, the book is an ensemble apeffort as opposed to single authors writing chapters. It makes it a little bit more challenging to write a book because you have to start with the early authors. One of the earliest contributors not only in the period, but also an actual writing of it and then we workedd our way to the 20th century. So, weaving that to gather was a conscious goal from the offset. I think that that is what distinguishes it from some of the other works that are either single author or multivolume single author. I wanted to touch on the conflict of the south really quick before we move into talking more conscious specific things. A new history of the American South. It goes back to many many years before the concept of the United States would have existed. In the introduction to the book, you get some guidance about what this bookow is not and what it s not framed around. Gione of the things born and raised in the south, we are not looking at the south through this lens of southern distinctiveness because wes thik we are so different or so special. We are often not looking at the south through several different lenses as well. Four purposes of this volume, how did you define the south both place and time. What led you in that direction . With regards to time. , admittedly, this is the book that focuses on the history of the region from before european contact,e but largely through te era of an emergence of a euroamerican civilization and what we call the south. While we do go back hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years in some instances, the focus will say 1500 to the present, admittedly. In thinking about that, we did not want to start with the assumption that the history of the region was the history of europeans in the region. So, we also did not want to start with the assumption that there was one moment in time and how the south became the identifiable thing that we call the south. So, it may sound complicated, but the way that we worked was backwards so to speak. We all think of the south appropriately because its a way be commonly talk about the south as essentially the states that were part of the confederacy. Good reasons to do that. So we accept that. We wanted to look at the history of that territory throughout the entire span of time as opposed to starting in Saint Augustine and tracing european settlement out from that. The reason why that is important is because the south looks very different inha 1500 or 1600 or 1800 for that matter. If you are paying attention to all the people that live in what we now think of as the south as opposed to just essentially euroamericans. It makes it much more, i will call it cosmopolitan south. John, in your essay, in your chapter in the early south, kind of taking it from that foundation about naming what was the south, your work delves into wind, and area we now know as the south started to become populated with people besides the native inhabitants of this region. You talk a lot about how people from three different continents came together in a relatively, not super large area of land for the first time for a lot of them can you talk about the early history of that initial contact and how the relationship between white settlers, native americans , enslaved africans brought over from africa, how those things started out and how they changed over the course of the. You are writing about because there was quite a stark difference from where you start, your work, this chapter in the book and where you ended. Yeah. The larger question is how do we define the south. The earlier centuries i was writing about. Like myself writing about that. , having this conundrum, how do you write about this region that became the south before it was the south. In the year 1710, like living in the south. But, during that time, say 1600 to say the middle of the 18th century, seeing profound demographic changes where in the year 1600, you know, essentially , the entire population would have been Indigenous People by the time the spanish and english and eventually french began settling , small pockets of colonization in florida and louisiana and virginia in the carolinas had then began bringing in enslaved africans. You see this profound transition where because of disease, warfare, trade and indigenous populations declininghe precipitously, 100 of the population and the year 1600 essentially by 1750, they are down to about 20 of the population. The european and african populations had risen dramatically by that point. Most of the south, what we now call the south, was still in native hands. So, west of the appalachian mountains, native territory. Indigenous people even though there populations began to decline dramatically. What you didnt see towards the period of the American Revolution and into the 19th century was enslaved people beginning to push further and further south and west and displacing Indigenous People even more. So this. Of 150250 years involves tremendous changes in population and culture and economics. Did that look different, different colonies depending on eawhich european country was settling . I think sometimes in the u. S. We have ah tendency to talk about early American History, we talk about florida for some reason. We tend to talk about the british colonies. Did you see any differences between say spanish, french, british, what thatt looks like . Sure, of course. That is one of the things we try to emphasize. G all of these different projecs going on with the french in louisiana. You have a catholic zone settlement over the gulf coast. Louisiana through spanish florida. And then when you go north and from the carolinas, that is the english. There is religious tension in their. The wars of religion that started in europe leave the atlantic and comp to be americas. With corresponding changes and differences in the way that those societies are structured. A higher degree of a corporation africanamericans and Indigenous People in the catholic societies than in protestant british colonies, for example. One of the other frames of the book laid out in the beginning was that the south is a region that sees a lot of upheaval over many years. This is not necessarily unique to just the south but certainly defining future. The third author that we have with us tonight, scott, you talk about a couple hundred years, stay with me, your essay focuses on the aftermath of the civil war. Talking about the conception of the south. People moving in and forming what we now know is that territory. And, in many ways, after the civil war, you have a situation where 40 of the southern population, give or take, went from being poverty in the eyes of the law to becoming citizens. Some of them, the men in that case voting citizens. So, you really have just a massive demographic shift there. Who gets to participate in so society. Your essay is titled the urban south. I was wondering if you could enlighten us on the title. You start out with a lot of atlanta history. We thought that may be fun to dig into. Yes. You have black and white settlers moving into f the sout, southern homestead, lots of black families getting land. Buying land. People growing cotton for the first time that have never grown cotton before. And, the bourbons are the ones, the story about the bourbons in france, they never forget, whats the expression, they never learned and they never forget. [laughter] and, so, the bourbons are the people that come in and try to retake the south and make it a white enclave in which white southerners ruled the roost. There called the bourbons by their critics. Populists and others. They justng want to remember agn and again what the south was before the war. What the south was during the civil war. That obsession with and dressing up this old south planters. All of this memorialization where you are trying to recreate some imagined south. Ironically, it ise being brought together for the first time uaafter the war. Actually not connected by a large by railroads. Supported by the Southern States individually that prevented them from going to one another. South carolina did not want any traffic going to georgia. It is really when the confederacy comes in that you see a continuous railroad that goes from richmond to atlanta. Not a place of any importance until the confederacy brings bridges, atlanta to richmond largely to feed the confederacy. And then you start to see it south all the way to texas. You start to see this convergence. Environmental catastrophe that then follows when you bring these railroads through andl yu start to see yellow fever and all of these other diseases that had previously just been coastal you see pellagra and scurvy and a lot of other diseases that have to do with all of this cheap food that starts coming in by railroad into the south and that cheap food does not have vitamin c. It does not have iron. Lots and lots of white and black people are eating food that is not especially good for them. You see this slowness and all of these diseases and all of these other things. I would argue that the south has become something. There really is a kind of south. One that is for people like henry grady in atlanta. About remembering a kind of south, the magnolias kind of story. Henry grady kind of puts together the way of excluding lack people from voting. The Supreme Court comes up with this way of preventing black people from voting. Not exclusively but implicitly. That ise the kind of story of e south. The bourbon south is the arrival. E they still go into the statehouse and they ensure that it willar only be black people. Only white people that will be on juries. That is when we see all of the ills that are distinctively part of thehe south. Building off of that, taking into some of the mechanics a little bit more, talk a little bit more, you mention the Supreme Court specifically. There are some other things that are even more georgia or atlanta specific. When you go into that a little bit. Most of the content that is grown in the south is, 200 frost free days to grow cotton. The deep south that grows cotton they can only get credit from all the banks are destroyed by the war. A common and kick all of the gold out of the vaults. An. Tton. And that means that people who are up around here, up in the hills, who would never have grown cotton in thirties or 1840s, are suddenly growing cotton. The only thing that you can get cash and and credit for it. So Country Stores and all these other things when you think about the cracker, we think about it as an Old Fashioned thing. But the Cracker Barrel was the cutting of the south in the 1860s and 1870s. It was the institution that gave you credit for growing cotton, that provided you the food that you needed provided all these things and so a lot of distinctive things that letst it distinctively, we thik of it distinctively so the rain and atlanta becomes the hub right away for consolidated railroads railroad run by radical republicans initially that joins himself together and most of the cotton then, but at the countenance of going out rather than through georgia so george becomes a colony and that way and its relationship to the u. S. Economy. Stu i think its interesting when you mentioned the magnolias but then you also think about what he was known for which is the new south. So explain how you both go back to the past and something new. He gave us each the union league around 1880 or 81 in which he says we welcome you to the south. The south has new capitol and imagines itself as a woman. Before started start see the south as a female character and. Thats how the south is thrilling with investment and its offering lots and lots of women who have lost husbands or fathers during the civil war a very large number of white white man and a man as well but a lot of white men were wiped out by the war itself so there all these unattached women black and white women and these will be the hands at the cotton mills so rather than just growing cotton people see industrialization and urbanization and industrialization and carbonation of the south is not what we see here. Its not these 20 story buildings. Its taking cotton and turning it into cloth and taking timber in turning it into and tobacco turning into and sinking the Raw Materials one step up and thats what the south is thats when we talk about urbanization places like atlanta we are talking about taking those Raw Materials and doing one more thing with them. Absolutely. I want to go back a little bit before the civil war because i want to touch on where you left off in such a large time. Max so during this time the way that africans and africanamericans andd white people were related to one another i dont want to leave out the native american piece of you talked about how the population is rapidly declining in the war is a huge factor that is the south expands you include oklahoma where theres a Large Population so can youou talk abt while this is all going on simultaneously what do we see going on isr . The leadup to the civil war and native americans because thater becomes very important. Sa said during the 18th century most of the south even though thehe proponents of the population is steadily becoming or european than african and indigenous population was declining even after the American Revolution as well as in the 19th century most of the south was stillll occupied their. What you see from the period essentially when it declines in 178888 until the first two or three decades of the 19th century is that an increasing pressure driven largely by the federal government as well as privateers to acquire land and took the people from their homes so what you see happening gradually especially under Andrew Jackson is people through their own good need to be removed to make way for white settlers and for expansion of cotton. So the indian removal act probably none is the indian dispossession and dispossession act was committed to moving Indigenous People so from george from florida and the carolinas and from arkansas people moved west and relocated to oklahoma so its good to reason to think is part of the extended south is a big reason why that would be the case. One observation you tend to think about violence and dispossession native americans especially west in the tradition of the violence that the u. S. Calvary men versus indians in the bloodiest war against American Indians was fought. The seminole wars the violent occupation of florida is very much a part of the story of the merchants of what we now call the modern south. In this whole book one of the themes that we all talk about and all the other authors talk about in our work is this idea of expanding kind of concepts of who gets to be considered southern so whose history is going to be included in this book is very very different than the history would have been included in the book years ago. Id love to hear from all of you about that process and the scholarship as well both within this work and obviously reflection of many other things we have all been working on for quite some time. Can you talk about how the definition of southern where you see that going . I certainly think the definition has been utterly transformed over the last halfcentury and its not just, we call it no pun intended a revolution in the study of the early south. When i was in graduate school the center of colonial scholarship was still in the middle atlantic. I mean there was wonderful scholarship on the Chesapeake Bay but that was a merely southern extension so there was a particular focus on early American History that excluded large parts of the south in addition we think back its not really until the 1970s that