East Tennessee within the world-economy (1790-1850) : pre-capitalist isolation or peripheral capitalism?

This thesis unifies a large body of primary and secondary sources showing pre-Civil War East Tennessee as a production zone integrated into a regional commodity chain. Found within these sources and others is a significant amount of evidence that early East Tennessee exhibited a stratified society with a regional elite and large landless population dating from settlement to the Civil War. The theoretical perspective used is the World-Systems and its theory of incorporation. The main goal will be to document East Tennessee's incorporation into the national economy as a frontier periphery. Inherent in the early incorporation processes were initial patterns of large land speculation resulting in the commodification of land and the rise of a capitalist elite. In the antebellum period we find patterns of increased landlessness and the development of an exporting economy facilitated by high levels of agriculture and livestock production.

Contrary to this wealth of information, romantic mythologies prevail within Appalachian studies depicting antebellum East tennessee as an isolated and self-sufficient region with an egalitarian society. This thesis systematically examines East Tennessee's pre-Civil War political economy from settlement to the Civil War. The results contradict the myths documenting the exploitation of V the region's population and resources pre-date the Civil War.