The Commercial Origins
of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790–1850
Kim M. Gruenwald
Merchants, traders, and entrepreneurs in the
antebellum Ohio River Valley.
http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/books/0-253-34132-9.shtml#top
“Gruenwald’s book will make the same
contribution to historical knowledge of the Ohio Valley as Lewis Atherton’s
Frontier Merchant did for our understanding of the mercantile Midwest in the
mid-nineteenth century. . . . a finely crafted narrative that lets the reader
understand that the Ohio River always served more as an artery, that is, a river
of commerce, than a dividing line or boundary.” —R. Douglas Hurt,
author of The Ohio Frontier
River of Enterprise explores the role the Ohio played in the lives of three
generations of settlers from the river’s headwaters at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
to the falls at Louisville, Kentucky. Part One examines the strategies of colonists
who coveted lands “Across the Mountains” as space to be conquered.
Part Two traces the emergence of a new region in a valley transformed by commerce
as the Ohio River became the artery of movement in “the Western Country.”
Part Three reveals how relations between neighbors across the river cooled as
residents of “the Buckeye State” came to regard the river as the boundary
between North and South. From 1790 to 1830, the Ohio River nurtured a regional
identity as Americans strove to create an empire based on the ties of commerce
in frontier Ohio and Kentucky, and the backcountry of Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The book studies the local, regional, and national
connections created by merchants by tracing the business world of the Woodbridge
family of Marietta, Ohio. Only as regional commercial concerns gave way to statewide
industrial concerns, and as artificial transportation networks such as canals
and railroads supplanted the river, did those living to the north define the
Ohio as a boundary.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Across the Mountains
1. Claiming Space
2. Planting a Place
Part II. The Western Country
3. Creating a Subregional Hub
4. Connecting East and West
5. The Dimensions of the Riverine Economy
6. The Western Country
Part III. The Buckeye State
7. Ohio’s Economy Transformed
8. A New Sense of Place
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Kim M. Gruenwald is Assistant Professor of History
at Kent State University.
Series: Midwestern History and Culture
Specs: 224 pages, 13 b&w photos, 4 maps, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Cloth
0-253-34132-9
$39.95
Southern Seed, Northern Soil
African-American Farm
Communities in the Midwest, 1765–1900
Stephen A. Vincent
The little-known history of free black farmers
in the Midwest.
Southern Seed, Northern Soil captures the exceptional
history of the Beech and Roberts settlements, two African-American and mixed-race
farming communities on the Indiana frontier in the 1830s. Stephen Vincent analyzes
the founders’ backgrounds as a distinctive free people of color from the
Old South. He traces the migration that culminated in the founding of the two
communities. He follows the settlements’ transformations through the pioneer
and Civil War eras, and their gradual transition to commercial farming in the
late 19th century. The Beech and Roberts story is at once part of and distinct
from mainstream African-American history. Like other black Americans, the residents
of these two communities had to struggle constantly to achieve freedom, autonomy,
and economic well-being, yet they were able to defy the odds and thrive over
several generations. Building on their advantages as late-18th-century landowners,
they took root on the frontier and ultimately paved the way for their descendants’
climb into the urban middle class.
Stephen A. Vincent is Associate Professor of
History at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater.
Series: Midwestern History and Culture
Specs: 272 pages, index, 12 b&w photos,
12 maps, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Cloth
0-253-33577-9
$35.00
Paper
0-253-21331-2
$19.95
http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/books/0-253-34077-2.shtml
An annotated edition of
an English captain's account of the slave trade.
"Of the hundreds of logbooks and journals I have examined, this is the
most valuable for the slave
trade in western Africa. . . . [Mouser's] exhaustive background research and
editing are exemplary."
—George Brooks
Captain Samuel Gamble's log contains the record of a slaving venture to Africa
and Jamaica that
nearly failed. It is one of the best firsthand narratives of the slave trade
to survive. Bruce
Mouser's faithfully transcribed and carefully annotated edition of Gamble's
log provides a
haunting perspective on slave trading at the end of the 18th century. Gamble
was captain of the British
merchant Sandown. During 1793?1794, the ship embarked on a commercial venture
from England
to Upper Guinea in West Africa to buy slaves and transport them for sale in
Kingston, Jamaica.
Gamble describes shipping at the beginning of the Anglo-French war in 1793,
naval and nautical
procedures for the English-African-West Indian trade, and the slave-trading
patterns and institutions
on the African coast and at Kingston, Jamaica. He recounts as well a yellow
fever epidemic that swept
the Atlantic and crippled commerce on both sides of the ocean. Mouser's extensive
annotations place
Gamble's account in historical context and explain for the reader Gamble's observations
on commerce,
disease, and African peoples along the Upper Guinea coast.
Bruce L. Mouser, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-La
Crosse, has written
extensively and edited several monographs on the slave trade and on commercial
patterns near Sierra
Leone related to slave commerce. Many of his publications have focused on the
Iles de Los, Rio
Nunez, and Rio Pongo, which were central to the Sandown's itinerary in 1793-94.
Cloth
0-253-34077-2
$24.95
Specs: 224 pages, append., index, 9 b&w photos, 9 maps, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
The Slave Ship Fredensborg
Leif Svalesen
The best documented account to date of a
working slave ship, fully illustrated
"Svalesen has turned up quite an amazing depth
of sources on this ship! They allow him to
reconstruct the tenor of the voyage in engaging,
vivid detail, even to develop aspects of some of
the personalities on board. It reads, when the
sources are rich enough to bring it alive in these
terms, like a dramatic narrative of the sea. . . . the
illustrations are often new, mostly well integrated
into the text . . . . They are a significant attraction
in the published book. . . ."
—Joseph C. Miller, University of Virginia
"Leif Svalesen's underwater archeology in
combination with detailed historical research and
vivid illustrations provide us with the best
documented slave ship found so far. In addition,
his own voyage of discovery as he tries to come
to grips with the Danish-Norwegian legacy of
slave trading, is a further powerful dimension to
this book. Thus, Svalesen has written a very
valuable addition to the transatlantic slave trade
literature."
—Svend E. Holsoe
The Slave Ship Fredensborg presents the
richly illustrated story of a typical slave ship and
its last voyage on the triangular trade between
Denmark-Norway, the Gold Coast in Africa, and
the Caribbean islands of St. Thomas and St.
Croix. The wreck of the Fredensborg was
discovered off the coast of Norway in 1974, more
than 200 years after it sank. By examining the
wreckage and surviving written sources
(including the captain's log, which was recovered
from the sea), Leif Svalesen, diver and author, has
reconstructed the Fredensborg's journey in
fascinating detail. He recreates, day-by-day, what
life was like for captain, crew, and the newly
enslaved. Svalesen documents the ship's
provisioning—from the number of nails to kegs
of water and wine—the litany of illness, the
number and type of armaments, the treatment of
the slaves, the intricacies of trade, and the goods
carried on the return voyage to Denmark. The
triangular trade is made specific and personal
through records and artifacts salvaged from the
Fredensborg, the most meticulously
documented slave vessel yet discovered.
The book includes an account of Svalesen's
discovery of the wreck, which led to his desire to
learn the Fredensborg's full story and to retrace
its final voyage. The Slave Ship Fredensborg is
a marvelous account of history and discovery for
scholar and general reader alike.
Leif Svalesen grew up on Tromoya Island off
the coast of Arendal in Norway, an area known
for its rich shipping traditions. He is a member of
the Norwegian Maritime Museum's Council and
a Board member of UNESCO's International
Scientific Committee for the Slave Routes
Project.
Publication date: September 2000
Specs: 240 pages, 64 b&w and 93 color illus.,
9x12
Cloth
0-253-33777-1
$45.00
Indiana University Press
601 N. Morton St.
Bloomington, IN 47404
(812) 855-4203
1-800-842-6796
iupress@indiana.edu
July 24, 2002