1.
Primarily agrarian.
2.
Economic power shifted from the
“upper South” to the “lower South.”
3.
“Cotton Is King!”
* 1860--> 5 mil. bales a yr.
(57% of total US exports).
4.
Very slow development of industrialization.
5.
Rudimentary financial system.
6.
Inadequate transportation system (Few RR).

Land intensive, depleting, and monopolistic
Huge capital investment in land and labor
Discouraged economic diversification
Discouraged immigration to the south

• Tobacco was the first cash crop and was a mainstay in NC, VA, and MD
• Indigo had been a big deal, but declined after the
Am-Rev
• Rice growing was big in the small strips on the SC coast (extended to NC and GA)
• Sugar was very important to the Gulf coast
• Corn # 1 crop on small scale farms to feed families
• Cotton boomed long after these crops

1860
Native American people were living on what was perhaps the richest cotton soil in the world

Indian Removal: Trail of Tears Why did slavery expand?
Geography:
Cotton spoils the land
$: Most profitable business in US
Cotton Kingdom
Eli Whitney
Slaves Using the Cotton Gin

South produced 75% of world’s cotton.

6,000,000
“Slavocracy”
[plantation owners]
The “Plain Folk”
[white yeoman farmers]
Black Freemen 250,000
Black Slaves
3,200,000
Total US Population --> 23,000,000
[9,250,000 in the South = 40%]

Planter aristocrats =
12,000
Lesser masters =
400,000
Yeoman farmers =
4,000,000
Free blacks =
250,000
Black slaves =
3,200,000

• Planter aristocracy
– 1,700 families owning 100+ slaves
– This is where the real wealth and “power” are concentrated
• Lesser masters
– 255,000 of the 345,000 families in this grouping own less than 10 slaves.
– Most own 1 or 2
Would it be logical to think there was some aspiration by the Lesser Masters to become
Planters?

• Subsistence farmers: "crackers”, “hillbillies”, &
“clayeaters"
– = 6,000,000 (3/4 of the white population) by 1860
– Resent snobbery of the upper classes
• are vigorous supporters of slavery
– Prevailing belief in racial superiority
– Comfort of outranking anyone on the hierarchy of miserable lives.
• "Mountain whites" in Southern highlands
– Virtually marooned in the Appalachians
– Resent planters & slavery
– Going to support of Unionism during the Civil War

Southern society was based on a hierarchical structure with the planter aristocracy on the top, maintaining all the
“power”, and flowing downward to rest on the backs of slave labor.

Tara
Hollywood’s Version?

(Hollywood Again!)

Slaves posing in front of their cabin on a Southern plantation.

SC-1856

Slave Master
Brands
Slave muzzle

Slave leg irons
Slave shoes
Slave tag, SC

The Second Middle Passage: Being sold down the river
Movement from the Upper to the Lower South
Why?
600,000-1,000,000

• Show 11.25 to 22 on slavery

1.
U. S. Constitution :
* 3/5s compromise [I.2]
* fugitive slave clause [IV.2]
* Allowed to end the international slave trade in 20 years
1.
1793 --> Fugitive Slave Act .
2.
1850 --> stronger Fugitive Slave Act .

Southern Slavery, on the way out?







1780s : 1 st antislavery society created in
Philadelphia
By 1804 : slavery eliminated from last northern state, Haitian Independence.
1808 : the legal termination of the slave trade, enforced by the Royal Navy.
1820s : newly indep. Republics of Central &
So. America declared their slaves free.
1833 : slavery abolished throughout the British
Empire.
1844 : slavery abolished in the French colonies.
1861 : the serfs of Russia were emancipated.

• Analyze (Explain) the ways in which
African Americans created a distinctive culture in slavery from white culture.
– Did slaves resist slavery?
– Did Africans retain any cultural customs, or did slavery erase all African traditions?

1.
Black Christianity [Baptists or Methodists]:
* more emotional worship services.
* negro spirituals.
2.
“Pidgin” or Gullah languages.
3.
Nuclear family with extended kin links, where possible.
4.
Importance of music in their lives. [esp. spirituals].
Jumping over the broom stick

• (Chorus)
Wade in the water.
Wade in the water, children.
Wade in the water.
God's gonna trouble the
Who's that young girl dressed in white
Wade in the Water
Must be the Children of Israelites
God's gonna trouble the Water.
• water.
• Well, who are these children
Chorus
Jordan's water is chilly and cold.
all dressed in red?
God's gonna trouble the water.
God's a-gonna trouble the water
Must be the children that
Moses led
God's a-gonna trouble the water.
Chorus
It chills the body, but not the soul.
God's gonna trouble the water.
Chorus
If you get there before I do.
God's gonna trouble the water.
Tell all of my friends I'm coming too.
God's gonna trouble the water.
Chorus

http://pathways.thinkport.org/secrets/gourd2.cfm
• When the sun comes back
And the first quail calls
• These are signs that winter is ending — when the days start getting longer, yet it is still cold.
• Follow the Drinking
Gourd.
For the old man is waiting for to carry you to freedom,
If you follow the
Drinking Gourd
• Some people think the old man was Peg
Leg Joe, a carpenter who reportedly traveled throughout the deep south.

•
The river bank makes a mighty good road,
The dead trees show you the way.
Left foot, peg foot, traveling on
Follow the Drinking
Gourd
• The river bank here is the river bank of the Tombigbee River in Mississippi. “Left foot, peg foot” talks about marks that were placed on dead trees along the river bank. If Peg
Leg Joe did create this song, perhaps he left his mark on the trees.
The river ends between 2 hills
Follow the Drinking
Gourd.
There’s another river on the other side
Follow the Drinking
Gourd.
• When the Tombigbee ended, slaves should go north over the hills until they came to another river, the Tennessee
River.

• When the great big river meets the little river,
Follow the Drinking
Gourd.
For the old man is awaiting to carry you to freedom
If you follow the
Drinking Gourd.
• The Tennessee River joins the Ohio River.
Once slaves crossed the Ohio, they were in free territory. There, people from the
Underground Railroad could help them as they escaped to freedom.

• ‘When the sun comes up and the first quail calls, follow the drinking gourd.
• For the old man is a-waiting to carry you to freedom,
• If you follow the drinking gourd.’
• ‘ The riverbank makes a very good road.
The dead trees show you the way,
Left foot, peg foot, travelling on
Follow the drinking gourd. ‘
• ‘The river ends between two hills.
Follow the drinking gourd.
There's another river on the other side,
Follow the drinking gourd. ‘
• ‘Where the great big river meets the little river,
Follow the drinking gourd.
For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom,
If you follow the drinking gourd. ‘

1.
“SAMBO” pattern of behavior used as a charade in front of whites [the innocent, laughing black man caricature – bulging eyes, thick lips, big smile, etc.].

2.
Refusal to work hard.
3.
Isolated acts of sabotage.
4.
Escape via the Underground Railroad .

The Monkey Wrench pattern, on the left, alerted escapees to gather up tools and prepare to flee; the Drunkard Path design, on the right, warned escapees not to follow a straight route .

Slave Rebellions in the Antebellum South
Gabriel Prosser
1800
1822

Nat Turner’s Rebellion, 1831
•Model Slave, Preacher
Received visions from God

Turner’s Orders: “Kill All White
People!”
• Approximately 60 white men, women and children were killed during Nat Turner's
Rebellion; most were hacked to death with axes, stabbed, or bludgeoned. The largest number of casualties were children. In one instance, Turner and his insurgents stopped at the house of Levi Waller where they killed him, his wife, and children. Ten of the children were decapitated and their headless bodies piled in the front yard.”
• The state executed 56 slaves; militias killed at least 100 blacks, and probably many more. The number of black victims overall far exceeded the number of rebels or of white victims.

• The Virginia General Assembly passed new legislation making it unlawful to teach slaves, free blacks, or mulattoes to read or write. The General Assembly also passed a law restricting all blacks from holding religious meetings without the presence of a licensed white minister. Similar laws were also enacted in other slave-holding states across the South

Jackson’s
Postmaster:
Amos
Kendall
• Abolitionist literature banned in the Southern mails
– Federal government ordered southern postmasters to destroy abolitionist materials and to arrest federal postmasters who did not comply.
• Bounty on Garrison’s head
• (Postmasters were to publish names of abolitionists to incite lynch mobs to form)

• Blamed on newly formed abolitionist William
Lloyd Garrison and the Liberator and his literature in Southern mail
• After this was the last time the South debated ending slavery and became united in Pro-Slavery arguments
• In 1820s, southern antislavery societies outnumbered northern ones

Nullification Crisis, 1832
(Southerners concerned powerful federal government might support abolition some day?)
Tariff Quote
"Much as we love our country, we would rather see our cities in flames, our plains drenched in blood - rather endure all the calamities of civil war, than parley for an instant upon the right of any power than our own to interfere with the regulation of our slaves."
-William
Drayton
(1828)
- John Calhoun

“
Could not sit there and see the rights of the Southern people assaulted day after day, by the ignorant fanatics from whom these memorials proceeded."
- James Henry Hammond

• How did the South use religious, legal, and economic arguments to defend the institution of slavery?

Southern Pro-Slavery Propaganda

• “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh” Peter 2:18
• "Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.” Colossians 4:1
• "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the
Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."
Colossians 3: 22-24
• Methodist, Baptist, & Presbyterian, churches split into North-South factions over the slavery issue

Pro-slavery whites responded by launching a massive defense of slavery.
1.
Legal: Constitution, Fugitive Slave Act, & State’s
Rights
2. Slavery supported by the Bible (Genesis) and
Great Civilizations (slavery existed in ancient
Greece and Rome).
3. Slavery helped civilize and Christianize Africans
4. Master-slave relationships resembled those of a
"family.“
5. George Fitzhugh -- most famous pro-slavery defender in the book Cannibals All Or Slaves without Masters
1. Contrasted happiness of slaves with " northern wage slaves”
2. Fresh air in the south as opposed to stuffy factories
3. Full employment for blacks
4. Slaves cared for in sickness and old age unlike northern workers.

From 1775 to 1830, many African
Americans gained freedom from slavery, yet during the same time period the institution of slavery expanded.
• Explain why BOTH of the changes took place.
• Analyze the ways BOTH free African
Americans and enslaved African
Americans responded to the challenges confronting them.

African Americans during the
Revolution
• Declaration of Independence ideas of liberty & equality excited African Americans
• Southern whites expected the British to start slave rebellions
– 1775, Virginia Royal Governor Lord Dunmore offered freedom to any slave who fought for the British, 800 joined
• African Americans fought in the war on both sides
– Washington at first barred them from the Continental Army, but policy changed as got more desperate, 5,000 fought for
Rebels
– 1,000’s joined British under General Clinton after the fall of
Charleston, most sold into slavery in the West Indies after the war
• 55,000 slaves escaped to freedom
• Slave revolts never materialized

• Revolutionary spirit of 1776, "All men are created equal" Declaration of Independence, global trend too, like British Empire
• Fight in the Revolutionary War
• Northwest Ordinance, Missouri Compromise, state abolition of slavery
• Slave trade made illegal by the Constitution starting in 1808
• Thousands of southern slaves freed after the
Revolution, some African Americans are free in the
South, more so in places like Maryland or Delaware

• COTTON GIN #1 !!!!! Eli Whitney, growth of plantation slavery, cotton despoils the land
$$$$$$$$$$$$$
• Removal of British & Spanish from the West and then Indian Removal, Andrew Jackson, Tecumseh and War of 1812, moved into the Black Belt
Region
• Transportation and Market Revolution, textiles in
NE, to ship-Steamboats, Robert Fulton
• Louisiana Purchase, 1803, Created an Agrarian
Empire, Slave Empire

• Try to help slaves in the South, like
Frederick Douglass, David Walker-Appeal
• Write Slave Narratives
• Create free black communities, face discrimination
• Create own churches, Baptist and
Methodist
• American Colonization Society tried to send them back to Africa, Liberia

• Not working as hard
• Played stupid and lazy, Sambo
• Breaking tools, stealing,
• Religion: Exodus & Moses
• Music, Negro Spirituals
• Extended family networks
• “Pidgin” or Gullah languages.
• Tried to buy Freedom
• Running away, underground RR, Harriet Tubman
• Rebellions, Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, 1821, Nat
Turner, 1831! Still a lack of rebellions compared to the rest of the Western Hemisphere

Steal away to Jesus!
Steal away, steal away home!
I ain't got long to stay here!
My Lord calls me!
He calls me by the thunder!
The trumpet sounds it ina my soul!
I ain't got long to stay here!
Chorus.
My Lord, he calls me!
He calls me by the lightning!
The trumpet sounds it ina my soul!
I ain't got long to stay here!
Chorus.