Ebook430 pages4 hours
How Curious a Land: Conflict and Change in Greene County, Georgia, 1850-1885
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this ebook
The story of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Greene County, Georgia, is a remarkable tale of both fundamental change and essential continuity. In How Curious a Land, Jonathan Bryant follows the county's social, economic, and legal transformation from a wealthy, self-sufficient plantation economy based on slavery to a largely impoverished, economically dependent community dominated by a new commercial class of merchants and lawyers.
Emancipated slaves made up two-thirds of the county's population at the end of the Civil War, and thanks to an able, charismatic, and politically active leadership, they enjoyed early success in pressing for their rights. But their gains, says Bryant, were only temporary, because the white elite retained control of the legal system and used it effectively against blacks. Law also helped shape the course of economic change as, for example, postbellum laws designed to benefit the new commercial elite ensured poverty for most of the county's small farmers, both black and white, by relegating them to the status of sharecroppers and tenants. As a result, the county's wealth, though greatly diminished in the postbellum years, remained concentrated in the hands of a small elite.
Emancipated slaves made up two-thirds of the county's population at the end of the Civil War, and thanks to an able, charismatic, and politically active leadership, they enjoyed early success in pressing for their rights. But their gains, says Bryant, were only temporary, because the white elite retained control of the legal system and used it effectively against blacks. Law also helped shape the course of economic change as, for example, postbellum laws designed to benefit the new commercial elite ensured poverty for most of the county's small farmers, both black and white, by relegating them to the status of sharecroppers and tenants. As a result, the county's wealth, though greatly diminished in the postbellum years, remained concentrated in the hands of a small elite.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 1, 2014
ISBN9781469617114
Author
Jonathan M. Bryant
Jonathan M. Bryant is associate professor of history at Georgia Southern University.
Related to How Curious a Land
Related ebooks
Oklahoma Freedmen of the Five Tribes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStaking Her Claim: Women Homesteading the West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBryant Acres: A Love Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Indicted South: Public Criticism, Southern Inferiority, and the Politics of Whiteness Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Before Jim Crow: The Politics of Race in Postemancipation Virginia Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Country People in the New South: Tennessee's Upper Cumberland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Brief History of Memphis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo-Party Politics in the One-Party South: Alabama's Hill Country, 1874–1920 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Families across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787-1861 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Goddess of War: A True Story of Passion, Betrayal and Murder in the Old West Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Clinton, Louisiana: Society, Politics, and Race Relations in a Nineteenth-Century Southern Small Town Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCreek Paths and Federal Roads: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves and the Making of the American South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An Agrarian Republic: Farming, Antislavery Politics, and Nature Parks in the Civil War Era Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Chestertown and Kent County Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ghosts of the Pee Dee Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLadies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reconstructing Democracy: Grassroots Black Politics in the Deep South after the Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCreating an Old South: Middle Florida's Plantation Frontier before the Civil War Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Experience Is the Angled Road: Memoir of an Academic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Strawberry Story: When I Can Read My Title Clear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Better Angels: A Conversion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHampton University Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJoining Places: Slave Neighborhoods in the Old South Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Bonanza Trail: Ghost Trails and Mining Camps of the West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bonanza Trail: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of the West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Divided Dominion: Social Conflict and Indian Hatred in Early Virginia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5U.S. History 101: Historic Events, Key People, Important Locations, and More! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for How Curious a Land
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
How Curious a Land - Jonathan M. Bryant
,e book_preview_excerpt.html }˒ײݯ's#}HJI#IJl]PPգ!ht
>~S%^ke]HM+7=cWcٛ){MȾB|m&*Yqctk/+=6*:%?t!4!{юpXd?[W"{?_>}8Ƕܘ̮CTwᐵ]
Euه.}/߅:{]յmJLܿ=|WxVW7C݅of\0r1<_|W[,{'(;ef>`=Ve0p2\͛A3*._VhjB0][Psͷ`=)]oǮer`ZjUsa\B r%w^.W"IW}sI*$I{Sz2+WEsME)>)E
n]`
7|~=xӋG?:KQo4H/yxy?a٣/]
nYVWb8V\ǿOހ>4s52fRҗ?z'Of6zxdz'/G~ţ緝͇gϲgOgOgߜ_8:*{=L:Sv?g?_}^p͛^4'(۪"{ce٫:M-Wu
BgD0Vnm}/\>W[(4l'4C?H:>q7O]lյ[YC[~97i
;N+e64,pdJ}v䫟=>|È#Nj!>haj?}iFNsr0xc?Ts`Cݙ$dž36_S;#?_=C|~xKsUgB`nӡ ><O_Dl~q] (^r~=..߫]u"]vftÙ]Op&g'6\3W\6pǼYYHR~(@70݀
="7 mDBM46N@RǮk ./@G7:<%χ9}ZdyݷdkؑtxS~wH$ 5¤w#=<X
s!;5ናBѮwӦiq۳u7,tׇiț0lm5?po;ZN,xӻJk=d|[c0Eمw1J05lz<r^n?\b`}<=BZ
gj[
/ @lBiܷP˟;DX&
o/]x7Aw>:q()Z9s_4|ﱥ]l4W=LFm]aYo@.m%X- br Kҽ> P
^C-ՀAl
2[`lp4&I.n 5S74I:.^*@_|[rᮨn%dV˜`pF}C%9\5eNdj Ӏѽ# \]} M`owUb0EWd 2yi8ZǝfZ]'U8醯1|j*p؇Fgiem[lA
3