African American Life in South Carolina's Upper Piedmont, 1780-1900 Book

This is a book about racial violence. Carrigan argues that "historical memory" of violence in Texas contributed (contributes) to the state's horrifying record of racial violence. How and why did central Texans (the book focuses on seven counties around Waco, TX) come to embrace mob violence, vigilantism, and lynching as a means to ensuring the social order? First, the "frontier experience," where whites were the "victims" of predatory Native Americans, and who responded with violence and murder to eventually expel the Indians. Second, the history of racial slavery (and the slave patrol) shaped the region's culture of violence for decades. Third, whites responded to minority resistance with mob violence. Fourth, and maybe most importantly, the idea of "sovereignty;" that is, the (white) peoples rights to exact justice, the will of the majority, and the legal system and law enforcement's failure to act or outright complicity in lynching.

This is a powerful, logical, and well-presented argument. It is not for the faint-of-heart. Carrigan is an excellent historian, researcher, writer. The force of his evidence and the compassion of his prose combine to make this an unforgettable read. Maybe one of the most important social histories of Texas and the nation from Reconstruction to the Great Depression.