The University Press of Mississippi 

The South and the Caribbean

Edited by Douglass Sullivan-González and Charles Reagan Wilson

The first comprehensive study of the close ties between the American South and the Caribbean

With essays and commentaries by Roger D. Abrahams, Kenneth Bilby, David Eltis, Stanley L. Engerman,
Aline Helg, Milton Jamail, Charles Joyner, Daniel C. Littlefield, Bonham C. Richardson, and Ralph Lee
Woodward, Jr.

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With the trade of sugar, rum, and African slaves in the islands that form a perimeter around the Gulf of
Mexico, the broad expanse of water known as the Caribbean ringed what came to be known as the South.

Today concise political boundaries separate the coasts of the American South from the multicultural
worlds that dominate the islands. Yet all anecdotal evidence suggests far greater ties. One listens to the
reggae in the streets of New Orleans or to the rumba in Atlanta. One notes the moans of the blues in the
cafes of Veracruz and watches Major League games in which young Dominican athletes hurling
lightning-fast balls become national heroes on their island homeland beset by political and economic
woes.

Do these human links suggest a greater regionalism than was previously acknowledged? This exciting
study of two discrete yet kindred areas gives an affirmative answer. It comes to terms with what many have
considered distinct yet fluctuating boundaries that separate and bond southern peoples.

These papers from the Chancellor's Symposium at the University of Mississippi in 1998 focus on and
examine the strong connections. Geographer Bonham C. Richardson analyzes the territory as a cultural
region "with Little Rock at the northwest corner and French Guiana at the southeast that also includes the
eastern rim of Central America as well as the Bahamas." Other contributors explore the creative cultures
that emerged when a brutal European economy enslaved Africans for labor. The essays also examine the
economic connections that have created such dissimilar and lasting legacies as the plantation system
and the love of baseball.

The South and the Caribbean flow into each other culturally, economically, and socially. These papers and
their commentaries suggest that future study of these regions must deal with them together in order to
understand each. The merging of the two through music, dance, language, sports, and political aspiration
-- all discussed in this book -- serves to give birth to a New South and a New Caribbean.

At the University of Mississippi, Douglass Sullivan-González is an associate professor of history and
Charles Reagan Wilson is the director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

JANUARY, 6 x 9 in., 218 pages (approx.), introduction, bibliography, index

ISBN 1-57806-312-4, cloth, $35.00S

Chancellor Porter L. Fortune Symposium in Southern History Series

April 30, 2001