The Cotton Kingdom: Volumes I & II

First published in 1861, Frederick Law Olmsted’s The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller’s Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States — Volumes I & II stands as one of the most incisive and enduring examinations of slavery, economy, and society in the antebellum South.

Drawn from Olmsted’s extensive journeys through the slaveholding states during the 1850s, these volumes blend journalism, travel narrative, and social critique to reveal the inner workings of the cotton empire—its vast plantations, enslaved labor, and moral contradictions. With a reformer’s conscience and an observer’s precision, Olmsted records the daily realities of life under bondage and the profound disparities between the ideals of freedom and the practice of oppression.

Part eyewitness report, part economic analysis, The Cotton Kingdom remains a cornerstone of American social and political history, capturing the tensions that would soon ignite into civil war. Written with both compassion and clarity, Olmsted’s account exposes not only the suffering of the enslaved but also the spiritual cost to a nation built upon their labor.

Complete and unabridged edition of both Volumes I & II

Detailed firsthand accounts of slavery, agriculture, and daily life in the 1850s American South

A landmark work in social reform, economic history, and abolitionist literature

Essential reading for scholars of Civil War studies, American history, and cultural geography