Chapter 16: The South and the Slavery Controversy 1793-1860
Checklist of Learning Objectives
After mastering this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Describe the economic strengths and weaknesses of the Cotton Kingdom and its central role in the prosperity of
Britain as well as the United States.
2. Outline the hierarchical social structure of the South, from the planter aristocracy to African American slaves.
3. Describe the non-slaveholding white majority of the South, and explain why most poorer whites supported
slavery even though they owned no slaves.
4. Describe the workings of the peculiar institution of slavery, including the role of the domestic slave trade after
the outlawing of international slave trading.
5. Describe African American life under slavery, including the role of the family and religion.
6. Describe the rise of abolitionism in both the United States and Britain, and explain why it was initially so
unpopular in the North.
7. Describe the fierce southern resistance to abolitionism, and explain why southerners increasingly portrayed
slavery as a positive good.
Key Terms
American Anti-Slavery Society (1833-1870)
Abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison, who advocated the immediate abolition of slavery. By
1838, the organization had more than 250,000 members across 1,350 chapters. (387)
American Colonization Society
Reflecting the focus of early abolitionists on transporting freed blacks back to Africa, the organization established
Liberia, a West-African settlement intended as a haven for emancipated slaves. (384)
Amistad (1839)
Spanish slave ship dramatically seized off the coast of Cuba by the enslaved Africans aboard. The ship was driven
ashore in Long Island and the slaves were put on trial. Former president John Quincy Adams argued their case
before the Supreme Court, securing their eventual release. (384)
Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829)
Incendiary abolitionist track advocating the violent overthrow of slavery. Published by David Walker, a Southernborn free black. (387)
black belt
Region of the Deep South with the highest concentration of slaves. The “Black belt” emerged in the nineteenth
century as cotton production became more profitable and slavery expanded south and west. (381)
breakers
Slave drivers who employed the lash to brutally “break” the souls of strong-willed slaves. (381)
Gag Resolution
Prohibited debate or action on antislavery appeals. Driven through the House by pro-slavery Southerners, the gag
resolution passed every year for eight years, eventually overturned with the help of John Quincy Adams. (391)
Liberia
West-African nation founded in 1822 as a haven for freed blacks, fifteen thousand of whom made their way back
across the Atlantic by the 1860s. (384)
Chapter 16: The South and the Slavery Controversy 1793-1860
Mason-Dixon Line
Originally drawn by surveyors to resolve the boundaries between Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia in
the 1760s, it came to symbolize the North-South divide over slavery. (391)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)
Vivid autobiography of the escaped slave and renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass. (387)
Nat Turner’s rebellion (1831)
Virginia slave revolt that resulted in the deaths of sixty whites and raised fears among white Southerners of further
uprisings. (384)
responsorial
Call and response style of preaching that melded Christian and African traditions. Practiced by African slaves in the
South. (383)
The Liberator (1831-1865)
Antislavery newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison, who called for the immediate emancipation of all
slaves. (386)
West Africa Squadron (established 1808)
British Royal Navy force formed to enforce the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. It intercepted hundreds of slave
ships and freed thousands of Africans. (379)
Chapter Summary
Whitney’s cotton gin made cotton production hugely profitable, and created an ever-increasing demand for slave
labor. Southern dependence on cotton production tied it economically to the plantation system and racially to
white supremacy. The plantation aristocracy’s cultural gentility and political domination concealed slavery’s social
and economic costs for whites as well as blacks.
Most slaves were held by a few large planters, but most slave-owners had few slaves, and most southern whites
had no slaves at all. Yet except for some mountaineers, most southern whites strongly supported slavery and racial
supremacy because they hoped to own slaves themselves, and because of a sense of superiority to blacks.
Treatment of economically valuable slaves varied considerably. Within a cruel system, slaves yearned for freedom
and struggled to maintain both humanity and family life.
The older black colonization movement gave way in the 1830s to Garrison’s radical abolitionism. Along with Nat
Turner’s rebellion, abolitionism caused a strong backlash in the South, which increasingly defended slavery as a
positive good, and rejected liberal Northern political and social ideals.
Most northerners rejected radical abolitionism, respecting Constitutional protection of slavery where it existed.
But many also began to view the South as a land of oppression, and any attempt to extend slavery as a threat to
free society.