Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry
  • Cited by 28
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
May 2011
Print publication year:
2011
Online ISBN:
9780511977428
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511977428
Subjects:
American History: General Interest, History, Colonial American History
Series:
Cambridge Studies on the American South
Information

Book description

On the eve of the Revolution, the Carolina lowcountry was the wealthiest and unhealthiest region in British North America. Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry argues that the two were intimately connected: both resulted largely from the dominance of rice cultivation on plantations using imported African slave labor. This development began in the coastal lands near Charleston, South Carolina, around the end of the seventeenth century. Rice plantations spread north to the Cape Fear region of North Carolina and south to Georgia and northeast Florida in the late colonial period. The book examines perceptions and realities of the lowcountry disease environment; how the lowcountry became notorious for its 'tropical' fevers, notably malaria and yellow fever; how people combated, avoided or perversely denied the suffering they caused; and how diseases and human responses to them influenced not only the lowcountry and the South, but the United States, even helping to secure American independence.

Awards

Co-winner of the 2012 SHEAR Book Prize

Reviews

'A compelling and meticulously researched account … McCandless has made exceptional use of a wide variety of primary materials, including letters, personal papers, diaries, official documents, parish records, pamphlets, and newspapers, to reconstruct the impact of tropical diseases in the lowcountry … This is a valuable and provocative study and will appeal to those interested in southern history as well as the history of medicine.'

Shauna Devine Source: Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

'… until now, few authors have been able to intertwine the economic, medical, and environmental threads so successfully. One recent exception who managed to set the bar high is William Dusinberre, author of … Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps … McCandless has cleared that same bar with apparent ease. We can only hope that their impressive works inspire more such compelling interdisciplinary studies, for the Lowcountry and beyond.'

Peter H. Wood Source: Southern Spaces

'McCandless nicely balances attention to rural plantations and their urban entrepôt, demonstrating how the spector of yellow fever and other afflictions strained and recast Charlestonians' lifestyles, customs, and commercial aspirations.'

Michael D. Thompson Source: The South Carolina Historical Magazine

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents
References
Bibliography
Published Manuscripts
Brunhouse, Robert L., ed. David Ramsay, 1749–1815: Selections from His Writings. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, N.S. 55, Part 4. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1965.
Brunhouse, Robert L., Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society, 5 vols. (Charleston, 1897).
Donnan, Elizabeth, ed. Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America. 4 vols. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1930–1935.
Donnan, Elizabeth, The Fulham Papers in the Lambeth Palace Library; American Colonial Section Calendar and Indexes. Comp. by William W. Manross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
,Great Britain, Colonial Office. Documents of the American Revolution. Edited by Davies, K. G.. 21 vols. Shannon: Irish University Press, c. 1972–c. 1981.
,Great Britain, Historical Manuscripts Commission. Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain. 4 vols. Boston: Gregg Press, 1972. Reprint of London edition, 1904–1909.
Greene, Nathanael. The Papers of General Nathanael Greene. 11 vols. Edited by Conrad, Dennis M.. Hill, Chapel and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Greene, Nathanael. Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina. Edited by Easterby, J. H.. 14 vols. Columbia: Historical Commission of South Carolina, 1951–
Klingberg, Frank J., ed. Carolina Chronicle: The Papers of Commissary Gideon Johnston, 1710–1716. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946.
Klingberg, Frank J., ed. The Carolina Chronicle of Francis Le Jau, 1706–1717. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1956.
Laurens, Henry.The Papers of Henry Laurens. 16 vols. Edited by Hamer, Philip M.. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968–
Smith, James E., ed. A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus and Other Naturalists. 2 vols. New York: Arno Press, 1978.
Smith, James E., ed. Statutes at Large of South Carolina. 22 vols. Columbia, 1836–1898.

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.