ABSTRACT

It is the complex history of the area-more than geography, more than slavery, and more than war-that has created the region identified as the American South. This chapter highlights the history of the American South throughout three major epochs: the Old South, the New South, and today's Contemporary South. The history begins with the indigenous people who inhabited the region, and identifies the colonial powers that scouted and settled in the southeast region of what would become the United States. The American South was an integral part of a British empire founded on the extraction of riches around the world through settled colonies developing agricultural products for the European export market. In the eighteenth century, the white and black populations of the American South diversified through new immigration, and the population swelled. America's rise to an economic superpower was fueled by expropriated labor in the American South.