Erin Snyder
Pronouns: she.her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Robert Mickey
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Political Science / LSA
Program:
Authors: Erin Snyder
Session: Session 7: 4:40 pm – 5:30 pm
Poster: 42
Abstract
As part of a larger project regarding the causes of the failure of the Reconstruction of the post-Civil War South, I explored the case of South Carolina. In particular, I studied how the state, during both the antebellum and Confederacy periods, perceived and responded to threats of disorder emanating from the state’s majority group: slaves of African descent. For the antebellum period, I discuss the use of legal resources, slave patrols, and the establishment of a military academy. For the period during which South Carolina was a member of the Confederacy, I explore the increasing tensions among rulers’ desires to maintain order, produce cotton and other goods, and fight an increasingly difficult war, particularly when many elites suggested that the goal of war-fighting meant that slaves should not be repressed, but armed as soldiers of the Confederate Army.
