History 120 Mary-Jo Wainwright, Instructor

Chapter Ten

The South and Slavery 1790s—1850s

Chapter Focus Questions:

 How did attitudes in the South toward slavery change after the invention of
the cotton gin?
 What was life like for the typical slave in the American South?
 How did African Americans endure and resist slavery?
 What were the values of yeoman farmers?
 Who made up the planter elite?
 What proslavery arguments were developed in the first half of the
nineteenth century?

Identifications -- Terms and Concepts to Understand

Eli Whitney/cotton gin Harriet Tubman

emancipation Denmark Vesey
Haiti slave revolt 1891 Nat Turner
internal slave trade slave resistance
coffles “black codes”
Industrial Revolution yeomen
cotton culture poor whites/tenant farmers
manumission planter elite
overseers plantation mistress
prime field hand proslavery arguments
gang system abolition
slave marriages William Lloyd Garrison
African American religion Liberator
Absalom Jones “gag rule”
Richard Allen gradual abolition
African Methodist Episcopal (AME) miscegenation
spirituals peculiar institution
History 120 Mary-Jo Wainwright, Instructor

King Cotton and Southern Expansion

Cotton and Expansion into the Old Southwest
 Eli Whitney’s and Catherine Greene’s cotton gin made cultivating short-staple
cotton profitable, revolutionizing the Southern economy – by 1811 producing
60 million pounds per year
 After the War of 1812 Southerners expanded into Western Georgia, Alabama
and Mississippi, driving out the Indians who already lived there, a generation
later they poured into Louisiana and Texas
 Each surge of expansion ignited a speculative frenzy
 The expansion of cotton was concentrated in the rich soil sections of the South
known as the black belt

Slavery the Mainspring --Again

 Industrial Revolution starts in England early in 18th century
 English textile factories need American cotton
 Direct connection between southern cotton and northern economy: shipping,
merchandising, insurance
 As cotton boomed, capital used to build northern factories

A Slave Society in a Changing World

 The growth of the cotton economy committed the South to a slave society, all
relationships in the South are based on the idea of master and slave
 South stayed rural, while the North became more urban, and lagged behind
the North in developing industry, RRs and canals
 In other parts of the nation, attitudes toward slavery were changing, including a
growing abolitionist movement in the North
 South started losing its political dominance as northern population grew

The Second Middle Passage: the Internal Slave Trade

 Cotton expansion stimulated the internal slave trade
 Slaves from the Upper South were sold “down the river” to the Lower South –
about 1 million
 Slaves were gathered in pens before moving south by train or boat
 On foot, slaves moved on land in coffles, auctions held at permanent markets
 The size and profits of the slave trade made a mockery of Southern claims of
benevolence

The African American Community

The Mature American Slave System
 Congress banned the slave trade in 1808 so the South relied on natural
increase and the internal slave trade
 Between 1790 and 1860, the slave population grew from 700,000 to four
million
History 120 Mary-Jo Wainwright, Instructor

 Slaves created a community where an indigenous culture developed,

influencing all aspects of Southern life
 White masters had to learn to live with the two key institutions of African
American community life: the family and the church
 The slaves’ first challenge was to survive

The Growth of the Slave Community

 North American slave communities, unique from Caribbean or South America,
in that it grew from natural increase rather than continued importation
 African American women had 6 to 8 children every 1 ½ years, death rate of
children under five twice as high as whites, women had to work and bare
children
 Had lower life expectancy than whites, 30 to 33 years compared to 40-43
years for whites
 Slaves lived in one-room cabins with dirt floors, few furnishings
 Plantation life included poor housing, malnutrition, constant work, susceptible
to infectious diseases, led to general poor health of slaves

From Cradle to Grave

 To survive, slaves learned how to avoid punishments and to flatter whites
 Allowed whites to think they were loyal and compliant, but they found ways to
slow the work pace: pilfering, malingering, sabotage
 No schooling for Black children, against the law to learn to read, although
some did
 Age 12 considered old enough to start work in fields or other occupations

Slave Labor
 75% of slaves worked as field hands usually in a gang system, from sunup to
sundown, performing the heavy labor needed for getting out a cotton crop,
usually supervised by overseers and their whips
 Old people tolerated by masters, usually took care of young children
 Some slaves worked as house servants which carried some benefits, but also
more subject to white supervision
 Some slaves were skilled workers, but wages belonged to their masters
 Southern slaves had more opportunities at skilled trades than free African
Americans in the North because of competition from white immigrants

Slave Families
 Slave marriages were:
 not recognized by law
 frequently not respected by masters
 a haven of love and intimacy for the slaves, more equal than whites
 Slave families were often split up
 Separated children drew upon supportive networks of family and friends
History 120 Mary-Jo Wainwright, Instructor

African American Religion

 Slaves were not permitted to practice African religions, though numerous
survivals did work their way into the slaves’ folk culture
 The first and second Great Awakenings introduced Christianity to many slaves
 Free African American churches began emerging in 1790s
 Whites hoped religion would make the slaves obedient, and as long as they
could control it, they allowed it
 Slaves found a liberating message that strengthened their sense of community
and offered them spiritual freedom, creating their own unique form of
Christianity, with many African customs included

Freedom and Resistance

 Most slaves understood that they could not escape bondage
 About 1,000 per year escaped, mostly from the upper South
 Running away and hiding in the swamps or woods for about a week and then
returning was more common
 Harriet Tubman was unique in escaping because most runaways were young
men because women would not leave their children; Tubman helped others
escape too

Slave Revolts
 A few slaves organized revolts
 Nat Turner, a slave and lay preacher, led the most famous slave revolt in
Southampton County, Virginia in 1831
 Turner used religious imagery to lead slaves as they killed 55 whites
 After Turner’s revolt, white southerners continually were reminded of the threat
of slave insurrection

Free African Americans

 By 1860, there were nearly 250,000 free African Americans in the South,
mainly working as tenants or farm laborers in the Upper South
 In cities, free African American communities flourished but had a precarious
position as their members lacked basic civil rights as whites passed “black
codes” to control them

The White Majority

Poor White People
 Between 30% to 50% of southern whites were landless
 Lived a marginal existence as laborers and tenants, as the existence of
slavery limited their opportunities
 They engaged in complex and sometimes clandestine relations with slaves
 Some yeomen hoped to acquire slaves themselves, but many were content
with self sufficient non-market agriculture
 Poor whites supported slavery because they believed that it brought them
higher status
History 120 Mary-Jo Wainwright, Instructor

Southern “Plain Folk” or Yeomen

 Two-thirds of all southern whites lived in nonslaveholding families
 Most yeomen were self-sufficient farmers who valued their independence
 A strong sense of community was reinforced by close kin connections and
bartering

The Middling Ranks

 A commercial middle class of merchants, bankers, factors, and lawyers:
 arose to sell southern crops on the world market
 lived in cities that acted as shipping centers for agricultural goods
 Some tried to bring industry to the South, especially as a source of
employment for poor whites, but were not treated favorably by white planters

Planters
Small Slave Owners
 Only 36% of southern white people owned slaves and only 2.5% owned fifty or
more slaves
 Most slaveholders owned only a few slaves, couldn’t afford to own more
 Bad crops or high prices that curtailed or increased income affected slave-
holding status
 Middle class professionals had an easier time climbing the ladder of success
 Andrew Jackson used his legal and political position to rise in Southern
society. Beginning as a landless prosecutor, Jackson died a plantation owner
with over 200 slaves

The Planter Elite

 Most slaveholders inherited their wealth but sought to expand it
 As slavery spread so did the slave-owning elite
 The extraordinary concentration of wealth created an elite lifestyle
 Most wealthy planters lived fairly isolated lives
 Some planters cultivated an image of gracious living in the style of English
aristocrats, but plantations were large enterprises that required much attention
to a variety of tasks
 Plantations aimed to be self-sufficient

Creating a Plantation Ideology

 Planter elite created a distinctive “aristocratic” lifestyle, with white master as
head of his “family” both white and black
 Plantation mistress ran her own household but did not challenge her
husband’s authority
 With slaves to do much of the labor conventionally assigned to women, it is no
surprise that plantation mistresses accepted the system
History 120 Mary-Jo Wainwright, Instructor

Coercion and Violence

 Slave system rested on coercion and violence
 Slave women were vulnerable to sexual exploitation, though long-term
relationships developed
 Children of master-slave relationships seldom were publicly acknowledged
and often remained in bondage

The Defense of Slavery

Developing Proslavery Arguments

 The cotton boom and expansion of slavery resulted in a need to justify the
institution which gave rise to various pro-slavery arguments including:
 Southern whites found justifications in the Bible or classical Greece and
Rome
 the Constitution recognized slavery and that they were defending property
rights
 by the 1830s arguments developed that slavery was good for the slaves,
and better than heartless individualism and vulnerability of workers in
northern factories

After Nat Turner

 Missouri Compromise and increasing anti-slavery attitude of Northerns, spread
of abolition movement, and Turner’s revolt caused sotherners to close ranks in
defense of slavery
 Southerners increased levels of control such as limited literacy and slave
movement and opportunities for communication
 Southerners introduced the “gag rule” in Congress to prohibit consideration of
abolitionist petitions

Changes in the South

 Despite efforts to stifle debate, some southern whites objected to slavery
 The growing cost of slaves from 1830 on meant that the percentage of
slaveholders was declining and class divisions widening
 However, white still equaled free, black equaled slave

Population Patterns in the South

 Seven southern states were admitted to the Union between 1800-1845
 In six southern states, slaves comprised over 40 percent of the total population