Examines a small part of slavery's North American domain, the lower
Chattahoochee river Valley between Alabama and Georgia
In the New World, the buying and selling of slaves and of the
commodities that they produced generated immense wealth, which reshaped
existing societies and helped build new ones. From small beginnings,
slavery in North America expanded until it furnished the foundation for
two extraordinarily rich and powerful slave societies, the United States
of America and then the Confederate States of America. The expansion and
concentration of slavery into what became the Confederacy in 1861 was
arguably the most momentous development after nationhood itself in the
early history of the American republic. This book examines a relatively
small part of slavery's North American domain, the lower Chattahoochee
river Valley between Alabama and Georgia. Although geographically at the
heart of Dixie, the valley was among the youngest parts of the Old
South; only thirty-seven years separate the founding of Columbus,
Georgia, and the collapse of the Confederacy. In those years, the area
was overrun by a slave society characterized by astonishing demographic,
territorial, and economic expansion. Valley counties of Georgia and
Alabama became places where everything had its price, and where property
rights in enslaved persons formed the basis of economic activity. Sold
Down the River examines a microcosm of slavery as it was experienced in
an archetypical southern locale through its effect on individual people,
as much as can be determined from primary sources. Published in
cooperation with the Historic Chattahoochee Commission and the Troup
County Historical Society.
