Wednesday, June 5, 2013

American Freedom, American Slavery--My first reactions before reading

From an overview and looking at a review hopefully this book will give me more insight into many of the things I’ve been teaching for years, most importantly how slavery made possible the growth of the attachment to liberty in the colony most productive of leaders establishing America.  I’ve been teaching that concept, but didn’t have a firm grasp on elaborating it.


One question: Why is their a picture of slaves processing cotton on the front?  Cotton wasn’t king until later.  Virginia’s boom crop was tobacco.  Also, why are they operating a cotton gin?  Isn’t that after the scope of this book.  Maybe I’m being pedantic, but I wonder if Morgan had a say in picking that picture.  Or maybe it will make sense after I’m done.

2 comments:

  1. Good question--my guess is that he did not. The press usually designs these things, especially when it is a big press like Norton.

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  2. I agree. Cotton is what most people associate with slavery so it may just have been a "catchy" choice for the cover of the book.

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