"Bondage or Barbarism," Parson Brownlow and the Rhetoric of Racism in East Tennessee, 1845-1867.

<p>This study analyzes the rhetoric of William "Parson" Brownlow during the Civil War era. Within the pages of the <em>Whig</em>, Brownlow's famous newspaper, he created a fixed image of African Americans. Brownlow argued that when removed from slavery, people of African descent naturally became barbaric, and thus slavery was needed to ensure the safety of the white population. Despite this consistency in racial thought, Brownlow, through the course of the 1850s shifted from defending slavery as a necessary evil to promoting slavery as an unqualified blessing in the years before the Civil War. Furthermore, during Brownlow's governorship of Tennessee during Reconstruction, Brownlow argued that slavery was economically deleterious to poor white farmers. These findings have important implications for the history of Appalachia. Most specifically, Brownlow's racist rhetoric suggests that race perceptions in East Tennessee were not significantly separable from the race sentiments of the larger South.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

MA (Master of Arts)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis - restricted

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Osborn, Kyle N.

• William "Parson" Brownlow
• East Tennessee Unionism
• Proslavery
• African American Studies
• Arts and Humanities
• History
• Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
• United States History

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright by the authors.

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2111

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-3472