The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture
Dublin Core
Title
The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture
Description
In The White Scourage: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texan Cotton Culture historian Neil Foley writes about the westward expansion of cotton culture in the Old South fundamentally shaped the social, economic, and political development of the American Southwest, extending the plantation economy, deepening reliance on slavery, and shaping racial power dynamics. To do so, he uses economic data about the price of cotton, government documents including the Indian Removal Act of 1830, plantation records, diaries by plantation owners and the enslaved, and speeches by Southern politicians. The historiography he contributes to is one shaped by scholars of slavery and geographers looking at Western expansion.
The book establishes a crucial historical context for understanding contemporary migration by demonstrating that the South has long been a site of diverse population movements, both forced and voluntary, that have profoundly affected its social, economic, and political structures. It highlights how the expansion of cotton agriculture was driven by the movement of people and the exploitation of labor, therefore creating a complex racial hierarchy that continues to resonate in the region. White Scourage reflects how cotton monoculture led to soil depletion, linking environmental history to human-driven economic growth.
The book establishes a crucial historical context for understanding contemporary migration by demonstrating that the South has long been a site of diverse population movements, both forced and voluntary, that have profoundly affected its social, economic, and political structures. It highlights how the expansion of cotton agriculture was driven by the movement of people and the exploitation of labor, therefore creating a complex racial hierarchy that continues to resonate in the region. White Scourage reflects how cotton monoculture led to soil depletion, linking environmental history to human-driven economic growth.
Source
Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
Collection
Citation
“The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture,” The Kudzu Experience, accessed July 22, 2025, https://kudzu.ecdsomeka.org/items/show/138.