ABSTRACT

This essay illustrates how slavery supporters and abolitionists, through their use of the popular press, invoked the recent histories of Central America Texas, and Mexico to justify their views on the United States’ peculiar institution. Slaveholders cast the historical legacy of post-independence Mexico and Central America as the story of floundering countries, comprised of unproductive people and incapable of self-government. Slavery opponents, on the other hand, invoked these same histories to highlight Mexico and Central America’s success at creating peaceful slave-free societies following emancipation. Abolitionists also invoked these republics to question the morality of the South’s plan to re-introduce slavery into Mexico and Central America after the conquest of these countries. This essay’s larger theme is to depict both the sectional and transnational elements of the battle over slavery in the United States and to demonstrate how historical memory became a new front in the battle over slavery.

摘要

本文说明奴隶制支持者和废奴主义者如何通过使用大众媒体，援引中美洲得克萨斯州和墨西哥的最新历史，以证明他们对美国特殊机构的看法是正确的。奴隶主将独立后的墨西哥和中美洲的历史遗迹视为陷入困境的国家的故事，这些国家由没有生产力的人组成并且没有自治能力。另一方面，反对奴隶制的人也引用了同样的历史，以突出墨西哥和中美洲在解放后建立和平的无奴隶制社会方面的成功。在这些国家被征服之后，废奴主义者还援引这些共和国质疑南方重新将奴隶制引入墨西哥和中美洲的计划的道德性。