AP US HISTORY Readings Unit 4 Paul Zuo Reading #1(pgs.

350-362) Cotton is King Cotton huge, quick profits drew planters to st8s. soil was still vigorous, yield was bountiful + rewards were high. Planters brought more slaves to grow more. Northern shippers would reap profits; shippers take cotton @ southern ports + ship to England, sell for pounds sterling + buy needed goods for sale in the US. Cotton of all US American exports. British in charge of textile industry which relied on southern cotton. Cotton was king: a powerful monarch. Cotton became the major crop of the south and planters became dependent on it to grow. This led to slave intensity + increased trade in NE. Rice also grew on the coastlands. Along the coast of south Carolina, there was long staple cotton, which meant there werent seeds. Demand for slaves increases in the deep south + that demand is met through internal breeding. Planter Aristocracy B4 the civil war, south was an oligarchy: a gov by the few (in this case influenced by planter aristocracy). The select group provided the cream of the pol + soc leadership of the south. Dominance by a few was undemocratic. It widened the gap b/e the $ and the poor. No tax supported ed b/c rich sent kids to private institutions. By the antebellum era, the yeomen farmer + the Jackson farmer are marginalized in the south. The rich elitist population who own 20+ slaves controlled the population. 347,525 families w/ slaves but only 1% of those ppl have 50+ slaves. The first families have followed the aristocracy. Economic Negatives associated with slavery Financial instability of the plantation sys: overspeculate in land + slaves plunge in depth. Slaves had to be fed at least 10 cents a day + were a heavy investment of capital ($1200 each in the case of prime field hands) and could be injured/runaway. Slaves were a good investment. On average, ppl got a 10% return from a slave over the course of a lifetime. Southern plantations became dependent on the world market + if the price of the world market dropped, the cotton would have no worth. Also, the slaves led to a monopolistic society that was occupied by the 1%. Sectional splits also were a result of slavery; southerners tied everything up w/ the production of cotton. Population in the north was growing + grew in power. South stayed the same. Southern Social Structure Only a handful of whites lived in the mansions. 1733 families owned 100+ slaves + had the mansions. Below them, 345000 families, 2/3 of them owned fewer than 10 slaves. Smaller slaveowners did not own a majority of the slaves, but were a majority of the masters. They were smaller farmers who had modest farmhouses. Below them were the great body of whites who owned no slaves, making up of all southern whites. They were often isolated + didnt participate in the market economy for they grew hogs and corn. Some of the least $ nonslaveholding whites were scorned by slaves as poor white trash AKA hillbillies. Poor whites supported slavery, even if they didnt have slaves/werent that much better off than slaves, b/c they could at least be ahead of somebody on the social charts. Around 20% of the white pop of the south has slaves. There was a lot of white trash. A lot of subsistence farmers + mountain farmers had no slaves. People accepted the southern social structure b/c they hoped to move up the chain. They hoped to move from 0 slaves to 1-9 slaves which constituted 20% of pop, then move up to 10-19 slaves then 20+. This was not very common. Social structure was measured by the # of slaves. There were just so many poor white trash + they were hired as patrollers to catch slaves. You had slaves/land. Even the factories in the south were occupied by slaves (i.e. Va). At least those white ppl werent slaves, however. Free Blacks North + South Upper south: freedom from the idealism of Revolutionary days. Deep south: free blacks were mulattoes, usually the children of a white planter + his black mistress. Some free blacks who bought freedom with earnings from labor after hours. Many owned property, some owned slaves. They were like a 3 race in the south; prohibited from certain occupations + forbidden from testifying against whites in court. Blacks in N were also discriminated; no pub ed, no vote, h8d by irish.
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Freed black ppl in the south were marginalized; no political involvement (no vote). Plantation slavery Planters regarded the slaves as investments, into which they had sunk nearly $2 bill of capital by 1860. Slaves were primary form of wealth in south. Slave life meant hard work, ignorance + oppression. They usually toiled from dawn to dusk in the fields, under the watchful eyes and ready whip hand of a white overseer. They had no civil or political rights. Floggings were common: the whip. Many lived on large plantations that had communities of 20+ slaves. Plantation slavery was good for the 1% but not for the general public. 92% of the sweet potatoes were produced in the South but agricultural crops were grown only for local consumption. The West also grew a lot of crops but they have exported nationally + internationally. The West have mechanized farming but the South has not. Internal Slave Trade Nearly 4 million slaves in south. Congress rescinded slave trading but still smuggled w/o penalty. Inc in slave pop came from natural reprod, diff from other NW societies + implied much about the slave regime + conditions of family life under slavery. Women who bore 13/14 babies were prized as rattlin good breeders + some were guaranteed freedom after 10. Growing tobacco was successful @ first but now its cotton. Largest pop of slaves in Va but highest concentration in SC. A lot of slaves in Va are sold + many of those slaveowners go into the slave trade. No more slave trade into America so there had to be a way of reproducing slaves. Slave life (families + religion) Family life of slaves tended to be relatively stable, + a distinctive African American slave culture developed. Forced separation of spouses, parents, + children were evidently more common on smaller plantations + in the upper south. Continuity of am identity across generations was evidenced in the widespread practice of naming children for grandparents/adopting the surname not of a current master, but of a forebears master. Relig: mix of Christian + African elements. For the longest time, slavery would be based on the lives of slave owners. Slave owners depicted slavery better off as slaves than freed men. Slavery officially ended 150 yrs ago. Slaves worked from daylight to sunset + house slaves worked in the kitchen. Slave Resistance Many ppl took their hells as runaways, frequently in search of a sep family member. Nat Turner + Denmark Vesey were 2 leaders of rebellions that both failed. Slaves worked with little enthusiasm thus generating an image of laziness in the minds of whites. They took food, sabotaged equipment, poisoned food? Very few slaves escaped from slavery not a clear record. Even with the underground railroad was in place, few slaves got away b/c the slave areas were surrounded by other slave areas + the underground railroad was active mainly in the north. Fear of punishment for family and not seeing family again would be enough to not escape. 2 escapees, Harriet Tubman and Douglass escaped from Maryland so it was close to move to Pennsylvania. Rebellions were put down + new slave codes were passed. Every effort is made to maintain the system of slavery that southerners became insistently reliant on. Reading #2(pgs.362-368) American Colonization Society Abolitionist sentiment 1 started @ the time of the Rev, w/ the Quakers. b/c of the widespread loathing of Blacks, some of the earliest abolitionist efforts focused on transporting blacks bodily back to Africa, like the American CS. Most blacks had no desire to be transplanted into a strange civilization after having become Americanized. The abolitionist movement brings all factors together after Nat turners rebellion. The 1 abolitionist movements started w/ the revolutionary war. At the time, there was slavery in all states. There was an impetus amongst the south to free their slaves + also many slaves ran away after the war. Massachusetts decreed slavery unconstitutional + NY gave gradual emancipation + N states thought gradual emancipation was key. They also believed that the slave owners should be compensated. The American colonization society, founded in 1817, was supported by Monroe + 15,000 blacks were sent back to Africa. These ppl reject the
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move b/c they were abandoning the vast majority of blacks in America who were still slaves + they were also used to the culture of America. Theodore Weld/Tappan Brothers Weld, inspired by Finney in the burned over district in the 2 GA, was aided by the $ Tappan brothers + fanned out across the Old Northwest preaching the antislavery gospel. Weld also assembled a potent propaganda pamphlet American Slavery as It is.
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William Lloyd Garrison WLG published the 1 issue of his militantly antislavery newspaper, The Liberator. Garrison triggered a 30 year war of words + a sense fired one of the opening barrages of the CW. He proclaimed that he would not accept the poisonous weed of slavery. Hes notable amongst white abolitionists b/c he is 1 to reject gradual emancipation + compensation. Garrison is listening to the 2 great awakening + is influenced by Finney that slavery is a sin. Abolitionist movement was not compromising + didnt go over well w/ a lot of ppl.
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American anti-slavery society Other dedicated ABS rallied to garrisons standard + founded the American An ti-Slavery Society. The tappan brothers and garrison go in different directions over the Grimke Sisters. The Grimke Sisters Notable in the abolitionist movement b/c they are daughters of a Charleston slave owning family and got shunned by the family because of their abolitionist ideas. Garrison likes the two girls expressing their opinions. Many people couldnt get over the fact that they were women. David Walker Incendiary Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) advocated a bloody end to white supremacy. Sojourner Truth A freed black woman in NY who fought tirelessly for black emancipation + womens rights. Continued to work in womens rights + the abolition movement. Frederick Douglass FD was the greatest of all black abolitionists. Escaping from bondage at 21, he was discovered by the abolitionists in 1841 when he gave a great speech in Mass. There, he lectured widely despite frequent threats. He published his autobio Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. It depicted the remarkable origins as the son of a black slave woman + a white father. Douglass narrative was a bit unlikely because slaves were unable to write. Douglass studied slave oral traditions passed down thru traditions. One of the huge arguments of the south for slavery was that slaves were like children who needed to be cared for. Douglass writing was a living contradiction. He reinforces garrisons ideas that slavery was a sin. In addition to being a huge abolitionist, he was an advocate for blacks to get equal rights + he was the 1 African American to be an ambassador. He escapes to the North + contributes success to education then writes his narrative for the liberator. When his narrative gets published, he is in danger of being captured + moves to the UK.
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Harriet Tubman Underground escape from slavery Tubman was sometimes forceful to get ppl to cross states. Southern Defense of Slavery Proslavery whites launched a massive defense of slavery as a positive good. They forgot their previous doubts about morality. They argued that slavery was supported by the bible + Aristotle. They said it was good for Africans who were saved from the jungle + clothed. Southerners became even more intense to respond to the abolitionists. Abolitionist press stations were burned + many people were resentful. They dont like the stirring up of trouble. Southerners respond to the

bible by using texts from the bible. Protestant churches + Methodist churches split as a result of sectional tensions. South said that North wanted a race war + claimed that race mixing would occur. George Fitzhugh Leading advocate of a paternalistic sociological defense of slavery who argued that blacks needed the guidance, restraint, and protection of white masters, and who caompared the treatment of southern slaves favorably to that of free blacks and whites working in northern factories. Said that the slaves were inferior people + slavery was no longer a necessary evil but it was a positive good. The radicalism of the abolitionist movement has shifted slavery from a necessary evil to a positive good. Hinton Helper Hinton Helper of North Carolina spoke for poor, non-slave-owing Whites in his 1857 book, which as a violent attack on slavery. It wasn't written with sympathy for Blacks, who Helper despised, but with a belief that the economic system of the South was bringing ruin on the small farmer. He said that slavery is bad for the economy. Hes a very typical in NC b/c theres not as heavy of a concentration of slaves in NC. Frederick Law Olmstead Olmstead had very influential slave travel accounts + wrote about whippings in the south for slaves. John Tyler Va gentleman of the old school, gracious + kind, yet stubborn. Disliked Jackson + was accused of being a democrat in whig clothing, which was only partially true. Tyler took over Harrison who passed away after a 4 week presidency + he was against many of the whig policies.