The political history of antebellum Florida has long been overlooked in southern historiography. Florida was a state for just sixteen years before secession set it apart from the rest of the Union, but Florida’s road to secession was as unique as any of its southern counterparts. From the territorial days in the early nineteenth century, Florida’s political culture centered on the development and protection of slavery throughout the state. The bank wars in the pre-statehood and early statehood periods reflected differing views on how best to support the spread of the plantation economy, and the sectional strife of the 1850s instigated Floridians to find the best way to protect it. By the end of the antebellum period amidst increasing sectional strife and a sense that secession and disunion were acceptable courses of action, Florida’s population pulled together under the banner of protecting slavery – and by extension, their way of life – by whatever means necessary. Northern infringement into slavery affected not just the planters, but every free man who called Florida his home.

Dr. Steve Nash, Associate Professor of History at East Tennessee State University, talks about many of the dynamics that emerged in Western North Carolina during the Reconstruction Era, with newly freed people gaining the right to vote, and emergence of tobacco as a cash crop to bolster local economies.

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In the 17th century, the Province of Venezuela was an unstable and violent corner of the Spanish world, economically fueled either by private conquest or the imposition of various forms of unfree labor. Though there were moments of resistance to slavery, the encomienda, and the reparimiento in other parts of Latin America, the Capuchin position was remarkably unified. This dissertation answers the question: what encouraged or allowed the Capuchins of Venezuela, as a corporate body, to take a posture of resistance to a program which had been legitimated by both civil and ecclesiastical authority? The answer surprisingly enough does not come from their immediate surroundings, but rather can be traced to its origins during the first hundred years after Francis of Assisi’s death. That is, resistance is not to be attributed either to modern or Iberian impulses, but to Medieval and Italian. This dissertation argues that the abolitionist position that these men articulated was a direct product of a radical Franciscan ideology that was internalized and transmitted via the Ordo Fratrum Minorum Cappucinorum. The Capuchins of Venezuela eschewed any concern for social stability or the flourishing of empire and instead embraced a radical conception of obedientia, which enabled them to resist coercive activity in the region. The key to this resistance was a perfectionist interpretation of the Franciscan vita. In this model, complete adherence to Francis’ way of living—as expressed in his writings, especially the Rule, and to his more radical descendants, the Testamentum—was understood to be the most ideal program for Christian living outside of the Gospels, providing a moveable locus of stability. The mind of Francis thus provided a transcendent point which was divorced from time, place, and immediate social concerns. Through analysis, literary and contextual, of Rule commentaries, personal correspondences, and polemical writings, three things become clear. The first is that there was a strain of Franciscan theology and praxis that rejected authority not directly derived from the life and methods of Francis of Assisi. Second, the Capuchins from their earliest moments adopted and espoused these positions as the official platform of the Reform. Finally, both of these elements primed the friars to resist the coercive colonial program in Venezuela. In undertaking this argument, this dissertation does not advance any claims of Franciscan exceptionalism, or imply that resistance to coercion was an integral part of the Capuchin colonial experience writ large. Instead, I attempt to illustrate that when the Capuchins chose to elevate their own consciences’ above contemporary social norms, they did so by utilizing methods which were deeply ingrained in the Capuchin Reform. / 2026-01-24T00:00:00Z

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A North Carolina Presbyterian minister and founder of Davidson College, Robert Hall Morrison was also a slave owner and father-in-law to three Confederate generals; yet he opposed slavery and often spouted anti-secessionist rhetoric. He preferred living in the Northern states. However, at the time of North Carolina's secession, he opted to stay in the South. Morrison expressed sentiments in letters written to family and close friends that together reveal no less than a paradoxical man. This thesis attempts to explore the contradictions expressed by Morrison in a series of letters, written primarily to a cousin and fellow Presbyterian minister, James Morrison, in the four decades leading to the Civil War. The letters unveil the contradictions that shaped Morrison and his views on slavery, secession and his society. In so doing, the thesis intends to flesh out an historic figure in North Carolina education and southern religion, and provide insights into various and similar contradictions and social issues in the antebellum South through the case study of one man. It examines paths he selected, and reveals Morrison as a fallible man who made strides in the name of education while questioning the inherently southern institution of evangelical religion. / Master of Arts

Most observers consider that Lord Dunmore was the driving force behind the creation of the Ethiopian Regiment. This paper demonstrates that the slaves themselves provided the necessary impetus for bringing about Dunmore's Proclamation of Emancipation, and that the governor simply responded to slaves’ willingness to take up arms in pursuit of liberty. This paper also considers the role played by nonslave actors in the exploits of the Regiment. These actors included the British Parliament; various British military and government officials; the Virginia Convention of 1775; the various Virginia military units, both regular and volunteer; and the white population of Virginia as a whole. However, primary emphasis is placed upon the efforts and actions of the Ethiopians themselves. The first chapter investigates the events which led up to Dunmore's Declaration of Emancipation, and clarifies the degree to which the servile uprisings in the preceding century influenced Dunmore's decision to free and arm Virginia's slaves. The second chapter details the Ethiopians' involvement in the military actions associated with the Battle of Great Bridge on December 9, 1775. The third chapter describes the Regiment's other engagements, including its defense of the Portsmouth enclave and the British sanctuary on Gwynn's Island, and the skirmishes at St. George's Island, Maryland, and Aquia Creek, Virginia. The fourth chapter evaluates the importance of the Ethiopian Regiment both as an instrument of Dunmore's policy and as a means for slaves to gain their freedom. An appendix includes the names of over two hundred confirmed or suspected Ethiopians. / Master of Arts

This dissertation challenges Charles W. Ramsdell's needless war theory, which argued that profitable slavery would not have existed west of the 98th meridian and that slavery would have died a natural death. It uses statistical information that is mined from the county tax records to show how slave-owners on the northwestern frontier of Texas raised livestock rather than market crops, before and during the Civil War. This enterprise was so strong that it not only continued to expand throughout this period, but it also became the foundation for the recovery of the Texas economy after the war.

This thesis explores the nature of white-slave relations in the U.S. South during the thirty-year period that preceded the Civil War. It asks one central question: How did slaveowners, overseers, patrollers, and nonslaveowners attempt to physically and psychologically punish slaves and control their behavior? An analysis of the Virginia ex-slave narratives serves as a case study of the ways white agents of authority treated slaves, and state slave codes and state supreme court cases provide information on the legal aspects of slave treatment and limits on white behavior. Additional sources that shed light on antebellum race relations include fugitive slave accounts, slave autobiographies, articles in Southern agricultural journals by owners and overseers, and white travelers’ accounts. An examination of these sources shows that slave treatment was fundamentally coercive; that the threat of violence by whites against slaves was an inseparable element of all white-slave interactions; that slave punishment and abuse was frequent and ritualized; that white and slave perceptions of slave punishment differed significantly; and that slaves influenced white behavior, refused to legitimize white authority, and actively resisted abuse. / Master of Arts