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History of the United States I / Unit 12   USH1 1655 short lesson, about 20 seconds

Sold Down the River

Captions available

The idea

The phrase sold down the river, used in Harriet Beecher Stowe's eighteen fifty-two novel, meant forced migration from the upper South to the Deep South for cotton.

In practice

A direction of travel that everyone enslaved in Virginia understood.

Where people slip

The river is the Mississippi and the destination is the cotton frontier. The phrase is a description of a trade route.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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