Review by Karen Ackermann
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James K. Polk (1795-1849) was president of the United States from 1845 to 1849. He married Sarah Childress and was a cotton planter, first in western Tennessee and then in northern Mississippi. His last plantation was a profitable enterprise that paid him a good return and left his widow a comfortable income. Life was brutal for the fifty or so slave laborers, however; children under the age of 15 on the Polk estate died at a higher rate than those on other plantations and slaves steadily (if temporarily) fled the property while Polk was absent. The author seeks not to simply do another biography of Polk: lawyer-politician, Democratic Party member, congressman, Tennessee governor (1839-1841), and president. Instead, Dusinberre explores the connections between social and political history that are revealed through a study of this man's life. Polk was a conscientious and meticulous record-keeper (and he had no one to edit or cull his papers at his death) so here we have slaves with names duly recorded and we see their lives on the Polk plantation with a vividness often lacking in other monographs on American presidents. Slaves had many ways--both minor and imposing--of protesting their status. Running away was one tactic rendered overwhelmingly significant in the minds of many Americans because of the development of the Underground Railroad to help fleeing slaves. The author spends two chapters on Polk plantation fugitives (one for Tennessee and one for Mississippi) and, in so doing, reveals what the slaves thought of their lives under Polk's ownership. Also revealed are the methods Polk used to deal with his dissenting property. The author devotes a lengthy chapter to the question of paternalistic benevolence on the Polk plantation. It is a topic fraught with emotion for descendants of both slaves and masters, and one that Dusinberre treats with scholarly professionalism. Through it all we gain a greater understanding of the slave system in the antebellum South and the role slavery played in initiating the catastrophic Civil War. Southern plantations were businesses and expected to provide a profitable return on investment for the owners. The antebellum slave system was an integral part of the entrepreneurial spirit infusing this era. Polk was intent on running a successful plantation. Consequently, he sold his property in Tennessee and moved to virgin land in Mississippi where he, at last, was financially successful (due in part to the annexation of Texas, leap in slave prices, and the rise in cotton prices). Slavery and slave management influenced Polk's political career. Prior to his election as president, Polk often took a pro-slavery stance. As president, he pushed for the annexation of Texas as a slave state and with boundaries so inflated that this was probably the decisive factor impelling Mexican leaders to make war against the U.S. Gaining California and New Mexico territory at the successful conclusion of the war, Polk insisted that slaveholders' rights be recognized in the new lands. This book, though a biography of only one man, nevertheless gives us a greater understanding of the whole plantation system in the antebellum South and insight into how many of the other slaveholding southern politicians must have viewed the combination of business, politics, and the institution of slavery. This is a highly readable, scholarly work that draws on previously unexplored records and gives a vivid account of life on a cotton plantation. |
