The Cotton Kingdom

A Traveler’s Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States, 1853-1861

By: Frederick Law Olmsted

Narrated by: John Lescault

Length: 24 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

In 1853, Frederick Law Olmsted was working for the New York Times when he journeyed to the southern slave states and wrote one of the most important pro-abolition discourses.

The Cotton Kingdom recounts his daily observations of the curse of slavery: the poverty it brought to both black and white people, the inadequacies of the plantation system, and the economic consequences and problems associated with America’s most “peculiar institution.”

Disproving the opinion that “cotton is king”, Olmsted examined the huge differences between the economies of the northern and southern states, contrasting the more successful, wealthy, and progressive North with the South, which was stubbornly convinced of the necessity of slavery.

Hailed as one of the most convincing and influential antislavery arguments, Olmsted’s work was widely praised, with London’s Westminster Review declaring, “it is impossible to resist his accumulated evidence.”

Public Domain (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing, Inc.

Fascinating

Amazing that this happened. That Olmsted, with his farming experience, should spend three years touring the plantations of the south on the eve of the civil war. And then write it all down.

I agree with the last reviewer that Lescault’s sometimes staccato narration takes getting used to. And that in the end it is a brilliant framing. Olmsted cloaks his own views as he lets the people he meets speak for themselves. So a certain dry irony of required. Occasionally Lescault lets Olmsted’s evident anger comes through.

Olmsted ranges from the Carolinas through Louisiana to Texas and back, riding from plantation to plantation. His hilarious descriptions of appalling accommodations prick the ‘Gone with the wind’ imagining of how life was lived. His day time tours of cotton plantations explain the economic of cotton in detail - maybe too much detail for some. More broadly, he has much to say about the impact of slavery on the south - on the labor market, on the policing, on the lawlessness - in ways that inform today’s politics.

Olmsted went in to build Central Park in New York!

Extensive use of the N-word (although not by Olmsted) if you are triggered.

Fascinating History

Very interesting listen. The story was great and informative. Frustrating to hear arguments, still used today, being eviscerated by contemporary facts.

Essential reading in light of today's struggle for racial justice in the United States, 160 years after its publication.

Olmsted's "Cotton Kingdom" is the most profound revelation of life in what would soon be called the Confederacy, I would consider this work to be essential reading for anyone and everyone wishing to understand the institution of Slavery and its detrimental effect upon the entire economy and society of the Southern states, the effects of which still reverberate 160 years after this book was first published. Today, in 2021, the perpetuation of brutality by "law enforcement" against African American citizens should be understood in context of this very book.
It took several chapters before I became comfortable with the narrator's style; but eventually became convinced of the genius of his method of presentation.

UNDERAPPRECIATED CLASSIC

Anybody interested in the issue of slavery should read this book. It is part travel journal, part analysis of the cotton/Slave Kingdom. Olmstead's thesis is that the South's system of slave plantation economy retarded the economic and cultural development of the south. His journey's throughout the south, where he stayed sometimes in shabby hotels, but more often in shabby houses is hilarious. He records his conversations with slaveowner, poor whites, slaves, pro-slavery and anti-slavery individuals. The conversations are enlightening and often funny. His characterization of many of the slaveowners and the south in general is brutal. Apologists for the "Lost Cause" will not love this book. I did.

A special word for the narrator, John Lescault. He gives a brilliant performance. He does so many difference voices and accents, all quite entertaining. I assume his narration of Olmstead is Lescault's real voice.

A special warning: This book probably sets the record for the "F Bomb". Nearly every character uses it every time referring to a black person, which is all the time. Olmstead himself uses the term "negro", but he doesn't flinch from recording the southern vernacular. I hope the reader/listener will accept the terminology in the spirit in which it is recorded by Olmstead.

A Surreal Exercise in Time Travel

I arrived at this book having recently listened to a biography of its park-making author, Frederick Law Olmstead. Arguably what he documented during his travels through the antebellum South are as important, or perhaps more so, to his legacy. Often over the course of the narrative sections of this book I felt as if I were there there with Olmstead, sharing in the often dumbfounding experiences he encountered in the South. This is where Olmstead is at his strongest, in vivid descriptions of places, people, and conversations. For any listener, or reader, seeking a greater degree of understanding of the reality of daily life under slavery, Olmstead's work is priceless. His conversations with slaves and slave owners, his visceral immersion in the poverty of the south, and his expert observations of southern agricultural failings, and his unique perspective on what he was witnessing are all of great interest.