The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 33, July 1929 - April, 1930 Page: 94
344 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
there was a reasonable expectation of profit from slave labor,
provided, of course, that no political barrier was encountered.
The astonishing rapidity of the advance of the southern fron-
tier prior to 1840 had alarmed the opponents of slavery, who
feared that the institution would extend indefinitely into the
West. But by 1849-50, when the contest over the principle of
the Wilmot Proviso was at its height, the western limits of the
cotton-growing region were already approximated; and by the
time the new Republican party was formed to check the further
expansion of slavery, the westward march of the cotton planta-
tion was evidently slowing down. The northern frontier of
cotton production west of the Mississippi had already been estab-
lished at about the northern line of Arkansas.1 Only a negli-
gible amount of the staple was being grown in Missouri.
West of Arkansas a little cotton was cultivated by the slave-
holding, civilized Indians; but until the Indian territory should
be opened generally to white settlement-a development of
which there was no immediate prospect-it could not become
a slaveholding region of any importance. The only possibility
of a further westward extension of the cotton belt was in Texas.
In that state alone was the frontier line of cotton and slavery
still advancing.
In considering the possibilities of the further extension of
slavery, then, it is necessary to examine the situation in Texas
in the eighteen-fifties. Though slaves had been introduced into
Texas by some of Stephen F. Austin's colonists, they were not
brought in large numbers until after annexation. Before the
Texas Revolution, the attitude of the Mexican government and
the difficulty of marketing the products of slave labor had checked
their introduction; while during the period of the Republic,
the uncertainty as to the future of the country, the heavy tariff
laid upon Texas cotton by the United States,2 which in the
absence of a direct trade with Europe was virtually the only
market for Texas cotton, and the low price of cotton after 1839,
'See charts in Atlas of American Agriculture (Washington, 1918), Part
V, Sect. A: Cotton, 16-17.
G. P. Garrison, "Texan Diplomatic Correspondence," American His-
torical Association, Annual Report, 1907, I, 522, II, 620; 1908, II, 844,
1215.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 33, July 1929 - April, 1930, periodical, 1930; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101090/m1/108/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.