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Slaves, Ships, and Citizenship: Congressional Response to the Coastwise Slave Trade and Status of Slaves on the High Seas, 1830-1842
Between 1830 and 1842, the United States coastwise slave trade raised several issues and provoked numerous debates in Congress. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of the coastwise slave trade and its effect upon attitudes toward slavery in Congress during this period. The primary sources used include official government documents, unpublished and published papers, correspondence, diaries, speeches, and memoirs. This study concludes that the issues raised by the coastwise slave trade crisis and debated in Congress between 1830 and 1842 contributed to the decline of southern dominance in national politics and provided abolitionists with a vital motivation of antislavery agitation in the United States Congress.
Date:
May 1975
Creator:
Green, Barbara Layenette, 1950-
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Beyond the Hold: The Evolution of the Ship in African American Literature
In the wake of a disturbing decades-long trend in both print and visual media—the appropriation of Black history and culture—another trend is observed in works of African American fiction: the reclamation of the appropriated imagery, in both neo-slave narratives and works of Afrofuturism. The image focused on specifically in this paper is that of the ship, which I argue serves at least two identifiable functions in Black fiction: first, to address the historical treatment of Africans and their American descendants, and secondly, to demonstrate Black progress and potential. Through an exploration of three works of African American fiction, works that take their Black protagonists beyond the ship's dreadful hold, the reader can see the important themes being channeled: Charles Johnson's Middle Passage sets a course on how to arrive at true freedom, enacting a process of Black liberation that begins with learning how to survive "in the wake," a concept derived Christina Sharpe's work In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Rivers Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts demonstrates not only the effects of "the hold," but how the hold itself has evolved from its origins on the slave ship; as new holds are constructed and demanded by society, rebellion is …
Date:
August 2022
Creator:
Najera, Joel Luis
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Bass Reeves: a History • a Novel • a Crusade, Volume 1: the Rise
This literary/historical novel details the life of African-American Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves between the years 1838-1862 and 1883-1884. One plotline depicts Reeves’s youth as a slave, including his service as a body servant to a Confederate cavalry officer during the Civil War. Another plotline depicts him years later, after Emancipation, at the height of his deputy career, when he has become the most feared, most successful lawman in Indian Territory, the largest federal jurisdiction in American history and the most dangerous part of the Old West. A preface explores the uniqueness of this project’s historical relevance and literary positioning as a neo-slave narrative, and addresses a few liberties that I take with the historical record.
Date:
August 2015
Creator:
Thompson, Sidney, 1965-
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Slavery in the Republic of Texas
Slavery was established in Texas with the first Anglo-American settlement in 1822. The constitution of the Republic of Texas protected slavery as did laws passed by the legislature from 1836 to 1846, and the institution of slavery grew throughout the period. Slaves were given adequate food, clothing, and shelter for survival, and they also managed to develop a separate culture. Masters believed that slaves received humane treatment but nevertheless worried constantly about runaways and slave revolts. The Republic's foreign relations and the annexation question were significantly affected by the institution of slavery. The most important primary sources are compilations of the laws of Texas, tax rolls, and traveler's accounts. The most informative secondary source is Abigail Curlee's unpublished doctoral dissertation, "A Study of Texas Slave Plantations, 1822 to 1865" written at the University of Texas in 1932.
Date:
May 1982
Creator:
Purcell, Linda Myers
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Peculiar Pairings: Texas Confederates and Their Body Servants
Peculiar Pairings: Texas Confederates and their Body Servants is an examination of the relationship between Texas Confederates and the slaves they brought with them during and after the American Civil War. The five chapter study seeks to make sense of the complex relationships shared by some Confederate masters and their black body servants in order to better understand the place of "black Confederates" in Civil War memory. This thesis begins with an examination of what kind of Texans brought body servants to war with them and the motivations they may have had for doing so. Chapter three explores the interactions between master and slave while on the march. Chapter four, the crux of the study, focuses on a number of examples that demonstrate the complex nature of the master slave relationship in a war time environment, and the effects of these relationships during the post-Civil War era.
Date:
August 2016
Creator:
Elliott, Brian
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Southern Roots, Western Foundations: the Peculiar Institution and the Livestock Industry on the Northwestern Frontier of Texas, 1846-1864
This dissertation challenges Charles W. Ramsdell's needless war theory, which argued that profitable slavery would not have existed west of the 98th meridian and that slavery would have died a natural death. It uses statistical information that is mined from the county tax records to show how slave-owners on the northwestern frontier of Texas raised livestock rather than market crops, before and during the Civil War. This enterprise was so strong that it not only continued to expand throughout this period, but it also became the foundation for the recovery of the Texas economy after the war.
Date:
August 2013
Creator:
Liles, Deborah Marie
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Scholarly Trickster in Jacobean Drama: Characterology and Culture
Whereas scholarly malcontents and naifs in late Renaissance drama represent the actual notion of university graduates during the time period, scholarly tricksters have an obscure social origin. Moreover, their lack of motive in participating in the plays' events, their ambivalent value structures, and their conflicting dramatic roles as tricksters, reformers, justices, and heroes pose a serious diffculty to literary critics who attempt to define them. By examining the Western dramatic tradition, this study first proposes that the scholarly tricksters have their origins in both the Vice in early Tudor plays and the witty slave in classical comedy. By incorporating historical, cultural, anthropological, and psychological studies, this essay also demonstrates that the scholarly tricksters are each a Jacobean version of the archetypal trickster, who is usually associated with solitary habits, motiveless intrusion, and a double function as selfish buffoon and cultural hero. Finally, this study shows that their ambivalent value structures reflect the nature of rhetorical training in Renaissance schools.
Date:
August 1993
Creator:
Oh, Seiwoong
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Behold the Fields: Texas Baptists and the Problem of Slavery
The relationship between Texas Baptists and slavery is studied with an emphasis on the official statements made about the institution in denominational sources combined with a statistical analysis of the extent of slaveholding among Baptists. A data list of over 5,000 names was pared to 1100 names of Baptists in Texas prior to 1865 and then cross-referenced on slaveownership through the use of federal censuses and county tax rolls. Although Texas Baptists participated economically in the slave system, they always maintained that blacks were children of God worthy of religious instruction and salvation. The result of these disparate views was a paradox between treating slaves as chattels while welcoming them into mixed congregations and allowing them some measure of activity within those bodies. Attitudes expressed by white Baptists during the antebellum period were continued into the post-war years as well. Meanwhile, African-American Baptists gradually withdrew from white dominated congregations, forming their own local, regional, and state organizations. In the end, whites had no choice but to accept the new-found status of the Freedmen, cooperating with black institutions on occasion. Major sources for this study include church, associational, and state Baptist minutes; county and denominational histories; and government documents. The four …
Date:
May 1993
Creator:
Elam, Richard L. (Richard Lee)
System:
The UNT Digital Library
A Stranger Amongst Strangers: An Analysis of the Freedmen's Bureau Subassistant Commissioners in Texas, 1865-1868
This dissertation is a study of the subassistant commissioners of the Freedmen's Bureau in Texas from late 1865 to late 1868. Its focus is two-fold. It first examines who these men were. Were they northern born or southern? Did they own slaves? Were these men rich, poor, or from the middle-class? Did they have military experience or were they civilians? How old was the average subassistant commissioner in Texas? This work will answer what man Freedmen's Bureau officials deemed qualified to transition the former slave from bondage to freedom. Secondly, in conjunction with these questions, this work will examine the day-to-day operations of the Bureau agents in Texas, chronicling those aspects endemic to all agents as well as those unique to certain subdistricts. The demand of being a Bureau agent was immense, requiring long hours in the office fielding questions and long hours in the saddle inspecting subdistricts. In essence, their work advising, protecting, and educating the freedmen was a never ending one. The records of the Freedmen's Bureau, both the records for headquarters and the subassistant commissioners, serve as the main sources, but numerous newspapers, Texas state official correspondences, and military records proved helpful. Immense amounts of information arrived …
Date:
August 2008
Creator:
Bean, Christopher B.
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Inventions, Dreams, Imitations
Eight short selections of fiction. "Inventions" consists of two invented creation myths. The three stories in "Dreams" are fantasy tales set in a common dream-world. The selections in "Imitations" are neither fantasy nor science fiction: "Time's Tapering Blade" is an experiment in form; "The Wake" concerns a group of friends dealing with a death; and "Janie, Hold the Light" is based on stories from the author's family about Christmas during the depression of the 1930's.
Date:
August 1997
Creator:
Gatlin, Charles Morgan
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The South in Faulkner's Novels: Myth and History
The purpose of this paper is to view Faulkner's use of history from a different perspective by examining in detail the myths and historical facts with which Faulkner dealt. First, several of the prevailing myths about the Old South and the Civil War will be examined. Second, the actual historical facts will be compared and contrasted with legendary tradition. Third, and most important, several of Faulkner's works will be examined to show how he uses both the myths and historical facts to create his own "legend" of the South. Finally, Faulkner's view of the New South will be examined.
Date:
January 1969
Creator:
Lee, Barbara Yates
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Religious Dimensions of William Faulkner: An Inquiry into the Dichotomy of Puritanism
"The Religious Dimensions of William Faulkner: An Inquiry into the Dichotomy of Puritanism" traces a secular mode of thinking of American moral superiority and the gospel of success to its religious origins. The study shows that while the basis for American moral superiority derives from the typological correspondence between sacred history and American experience, the gospel of success results from the Puritan preoccupation with work as a virtue instead of a necessity because labor improves one's lot in this world while securing salvation in the next. By explaining how Puritanism begins as a rejection of worldliness but ends as an orgy of materialism, my study raises and addresses the paradoxical nature of the Puritan legacy: Why should the Puritan work ethic, when subverted by its logical conclusion---the gospel of success, result in the undoing of Puritan spirituality in its mission of redeeming the Old World? Furthermore, this inquiry examines the role Puritanism plays in creating the mythologies of America as the New World Garden, the white man as the American Adam, the black man as the American Ham, and the white woman as the American Eve. In the Puritan use of biblical typology, blacks and women function as the white …
Date:
May 1999
Creator:
Wu, John Guo Qiang
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Absalom, Absalom! A Study of Structure
The conclusion drawn from this study is that the arrangement of material in Absalom, Absalom! is unified and purposeful. The structure evokes that despair that is the common denominator of mankind. It reveals both the bond between men and the separation of men; and though some of the most dramatic episodes in the novel picture the union of men in brotherly love, most of the material and certainly the arrangement of the material emphasize the estrangement of men. In addition, by juxtaposing chapters, each separated from the others by its own structural and thematic qualities, Faulkner places a burden of interpretation on the reader suggestive of the burden of despair that overwhelms the protagonists of the novel.
Date:
August 1973
Creator:
Major, Sylvia Beth Bigby
System:
The UNT Digital Library
History of the St. Charles Theatre of New Orleans under the Management of David Bidwell, 1880-1888
The objective of this investigation is to compile a chronological history of the St. Charles Theatre of New Orleans from 1880 to 1888, the last successful years of the theatre when it was under the management of David Bidwell. In order to clarify the role of the St. Charles Theatre as it reflected theatre art in New Orleans during the latter quarter of the nineteenth century, special attention will be given to the physical improvements of the theatre, the kind of entertainment provided, the personalities who appeared, and the critical comments of the local newspapers.
Date:
May 1969
Creator:
Roden, Sally Ann
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Passing as Gray: Texas Confederate Soldiers' Body Servants and the Exploitation of Civil War Memory
This dissertation is an examination of the interactions of enslaved body servants with their Texas Confederate masters from the American Civil War through the early twentieth century. The seven chapters of this study follows the story of these individuals from the fires of the Civil War, through the turbulence of Reconstruction in Texas, the codification of "Lost Cause" memory in the American South, and the exploitation of that memory by both former body servants and their ex-Confederate counterparts. This study demonstrates that the primary experience of blacks in the Confederate service was not as soldiers, but as enslaved laborers and body servants. Body servants, or camp slaves, were physically and in some cases emotionally close to their enslavers in this war-time environment and played an important part in Confederate logistics and camp life. As freed peoples after the war, former body servants found ways to use the bonds forged during the war and the flawed ideas of Lost Cause memory as a means to navigate the brutal realities of life in post-Civil War Texas. By manipulating white conceptions of former body servants as "black Confederates," some African Americans effectively "passed as gray," an act that earned money, social recognition, and …
Date:
May 2020
Creator:
Elliott, Brian Alexander
System:
The UNT Digital Library
A Critical Analysis of the Equity and Efficiency of the Nigerian Personal Income Tax System
The purpose of this study is to analyze the system of personal income taxation in Nigeria, especially with respect to its administration, equity, and effects on efficient resource usage. There have, in the past, been numerous complaints that the personal income tax in Nigeria does not yield enough revenue for the state governments, primarily because of widespread avoidance and evasion of the tax, especially by persons who do not derive income from wages and salaries. This study examines this problem in light of questions as to how the tax evolved, how important it is to state governments, how efficient and equitable it is, what administrative problems it faces, and what reforms can be implemented to best solve existing problems.
Date:
December 1978
Creator:
Inyang, Efanga
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Southern Local Colorists and the New South Ideology: a Study in Literary Transition
A school of fiction known as local color emerged following the Civil War. It reached its peak of productivity during the 1880's, and faded at the turn of the century. The purpose of this study is to illuminate the Southern authors of this school, giving major emphasis to their genre in relation to their significance for Southern history. The main sources for this study come from the novels and short stories of the authors themselves. Also found valuable to this study were the numerous books, articles and criticisms of the authors by their contemporary critics. The Southern local color school, although it did not produce any major literary figures, contained many bright minor writers. As a group they reflected and shaped much of the thinking of their age. They also provide a connecting link between pre-war romanticism and the realism of the twentieth century.
Date:
May 1975
Creator:
Morris, Linda Kay
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Black Playwrights in America 1858-1970
This study is a survey of plays of Negro authorship in America from 1858 to 1970. It is intended to give a historical view of the Negro effort in the drama and show general trends during the twentieth century. The paper is arranged chronologically, beginning with the first play by a Negro author in 1858 and continuing through the 1960's. Synopses of plays are offered, but very little historical or sociological information is given and little literary criticism is added.
Date:
August 1971
Creator:
Mahaney, Teri
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Victorian Ideology and British Children's Literature 1830-1914
This dissertation shows the ideas of Victorian England, 1850-1914, as reflected in Victorian children's literature. To establish the validity of studying children's literature as a guide to the Victorian age, it was necessary first to show that children's literature in those years reflected and promoted adult ideals. Sources used include not only works by established authors but also children's periodicals and transient writings like "penny dreadfuls." There are four background chapters: an introduction, a brief social history, a history of publishing for children, and an examination of Victorian children's authors. Six chapters examine Victorian children's literature in relation to specific historical themes: class structure; the social problems of poverty; temperance; morality, manners, religion, and science; patriotism; and natives, slavery, and missionaries in relation to imperialism. Many findings support accepted historical theories. Attitudes on social class revealed definite class separations, mobility, and obligations. Stories on poverty and child labor show Victorian concern, but suggest few solutions other than charity. Literary items on religion and morality reflect a dominance of evangelical values. There was a morality separate from religion, and it was not threatened by the new developing science; indeed, the materials examined reveal how Victorians tried to reconcile the new science …
Date:
December 1984
Creator:
Ackerman, Ann Trugman
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Social Hierarchy of the South in the Works of William Faulkner
The Myth of the Old South, like all myths, contains some elements of truth, but like all myths, it contains some things that are not true. Faulkner has used those parts of the Myth that are true, but he has repudiated and in many cases destroyed those parts of the Myth which he has found to be the product of imagination rather than history.
Date:
August 1954
Creator:
Cain, Roy E.
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Anthem in America: 1900-1950
During the first half of this century, a wealth of anthem literature was published and performed in the United States that, as a result of the deluge of new publications since those years, has been either forgotten or is unknown to modern church musicians. The purpose of this study is to make the best of this music known, for much of it is still both suitable and desirable for contemporary worship. The research is grouped into six chapters that are entitled: The Quartet Anthem, "Anthems in the Anglican Tradition," "Prominent Choral Ensembles and the Dissemination of the Anthem," "Anthems by Prominent Music Educators," "Anthems in the Russian Style," and "The Negro Spiritual."
Date:
August 1982
Creator:
Fansler, Terry Lee
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Representations of the Mother-Son Relations in the Major Novels of Samuel Clemens
This thesis examines the relationship between Samuel Clemens and his mother, Jane Lampton Clemens. It is apparent that Samuel was strongly influenced by his mother in his personality, appearance, and beliefs; but of greater importance is the influence she exerted on the literary creations of Mark Twain.
Date:
June 1968
Creator:
Rogers, Janie
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Jane McManus Storm Cazneau (1807-1878): A Biography
Jane Maria Eliza McManus, born near Troy, New York, educated at Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary, promoted the American maritime frontier and wrote on Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean affairs. Called a "terror with her pen," under the pen name of Cora Montgomery, she published 100 columns in 6 newspapers, 20 journal articles and book reviews, 15 books and pamphlets, and edited 5 newspapers and journals between 1839 and 1878.
Date:
May 1999
Creator:
Hudson, Linda Sybert
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Disruption of the Social Order in the South During the Reconstruction Era
It is the purpose of this thesis to define wherein the social order of the South was disrupted, --- the conditions that brought about such a sweeping transformation of social structures --- and to show the growth of new social attitudes and practices evolving from the chaotic dismemberment of the old. Although primary significance is placed upon changes in the social order, it is necessary to consider certain political and economic trends that were interwoven into the fabric of social life during Reconstruction --- factors influencing, determining, or evolving from, social changes. In the first chapter is sketched briefly the ante-bellum society of the South, and in following chapters is shown the evolution of social culture during the first twelve years following the Civil War.
Date:
August 1937
Creator:
Bennett, Leo
System:
The UNT Digital Library