Slavery, freedom, and expansion in the early American West

Introduction: Slavery, freedom, and expansion in the overextended Republic, 1787-1820

Ordinances, limits, and precedents, 1784-1796

"That species of property already exists": Natchez, Mississippi, 1795-1800

"Grant us to make slaves of others": The Louisiana Purchase, 1802-1805

Slaveholders' democracy, the Union, and the Nation: Missouri, 1805-1820

"Hot times about slavery and Republicanism": Ohio, 1799-1802

Slaveholding nationalism and popular antislavery politics: Indiana and Illinois, 1801-1818

Making the "Free Northwest": Slavery and freedom in Ohio and Indiana, 1790-1818

"The states or territories which may hereafter be admitted into the Union": The Missouri crisis and the West

Epilogue: Empire for slavery, empire for freedom.