Ante-Bellum Race Relations in Middle Tennessee: A Study of Wilson County

Abstract

Probably no group in the United States, past or present, has received more attention than the slaves. During slavery's existence, its opponents issued tracts, papers, and books deploring its evils, while advocates offered similar pieces of printed matter as evidence of its worth and godliness. From Emancipation to the present day, historians have continued to find a compelling field for investigation and exposition in slavery. Unfortunately, most scholars have failed to search in Iow-land areas of the South that were not included in the Black Belt or in the mountainous regions that fostered the Southern abolitionists. Within the last decade, Chase C. Mooney brought forth one of the few works in recent years on slavery in Tennessee. His approach was to select fifteen counties, two in East Tennessee, seven in Middle Tennessee, and six in West Tennessee. Using the census records for these areas he considered representative of their section of the state, and relying heavily on state laws, newspapers, and the few private papers pertaining to these counties, he set out to show what slavery was like in Tennessee.