306 ChapTER 12 | War and eManCipation | period Five 18 44 –1877offered roles they mostly did, but both were being told that these were the roles
they would play, like it or not....... [W]e should... not allow the Civil War to continue behaving as it does
now in our texts and histories, sitting there like a gravity field, drawing to itself
everything around it and bending all meanings to fit its own shape. I am certain
that, while we call the mid-nineteenth century the Civil War Era, acquiring the
West had at least as much to do with remaking America as the conflict between
North and South. I know that race is essential to understanding what happened
during those years, and I know that the conquest and integration of the West is
essential to understanding race.
—elliott West, “reconstructing race,” Western Historical Quarterly 34 (Spring 2003): 1–14.
Based on the two interpretations above, complete the following three tasks:- Briefly explain the relationship between slavery and economics that is established in
the first passage. - Briefly explain the relationship between slavery and westward expansion that is estab-
lished in the second passage. - Provide one document from Chapter 10, 11, or 12, and explain how it supports the
interpretation of either passage.
13_STA_2012_ch12_275-306.indd 306 31/03/15 4:53 PM