The Slave South in the Far West: California, the Pacific, and Proslavery Visions of Empire, 1800-1865

Whereas most scholarship on slaveholding imperialism focuses on the Atlantic Basin, Waite argues that Southerners pursued an empire within the Pacific world as well. By tracking both proslavery activity in California and Southerners' attempts to capture the Pacific trade, hiswork highlights the centrality of the Far West in the nation's road to disunion.