Chapter 14 Section 3 & 4
“Cotton Kingdom in the South”
The Cotton Kingdom
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Cotton was so profitable, that the
south did not think it needed to
invest in factories.
Eli Whitney invented the cotton
gin. It was a simple machine that
separated the seeds from cotton.
It had an enormous effect on the
south.
By 1850, southern planters were
growing over 2 million bales of
cotton. Planters learned that if
they planted on the same land
year after year, the soil would
ware out. This caused planters to
move westward in search of new
land.
All cotton producing land was
known as the cotton kingdom.
Slavery Spreads Across the South
• As cotton spread across the
south, so did slavery. Cotton
would be cleaned by the cotton
gin, but it still had to be picked
and planted by hand.
• Slaves got no profit from the
land. They were little more
than property. The money
made on the plantation was
used to buy more slaves and
more land.
• The south had some
industry(factories) but not a
lot.
• As long as cotton remained
king, southerners believed
they could look to the future
with confidence.
Real Slavery Statistics
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The south is often seen as the land of
big plantations worked by hundreds
of slaves. These did exist, however
most white southerners were not rich
planters. In fact, most whites owned
no slaves at all!!!
One out of thirty families owned twenty
slaves, and less than one percent of
the families in the south owned fifty or
more slaves. These people were
known as the cottonocracy because
they ruled the south. These rich
planters often became southern
political leaders, often hiring overseers
to run the day-to-day affairs of the
plantation.
About 75% of southern whites owned
small farms and, if they were lucky,
might have owned one or two slaves.
These families worked in the fields with
their slaves.
Free Blacks in the South
• The south was home to nearly
200,000 free African
Americans. These people
bought or were given their
freedom, and were able to
make a life for themselves.
• Whites in the south did not like
free blacks living their.
Whites had been justifying
slavery by saying that black
people couldn’t take care of
themselves. Free African
Americans proved that theory
wrong.
Slave Codes
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By 1860, enslaved African Americans
made up 1/3 of the southern
population. With such a big
population, the south needed a way to
control the slaves. They did this
through slave codes. These were
laws that were aimed at keeping
slaves from running away or rebelling.
Under slave codes, slaves were
forbidden to gather in groups of more
than three. They could not leave their
owners land without a pass. They
could not own a gun. Slave codes
even made it a crime for slaves to
learn how to read and write.
There were some slave codes that
protected slaves from abuse, but
slaves didn’t have the right to testify in
court. So what good are those laws?
The only real protection that slaves
had was that owners looked at their
slaves as valuable property.
A Hard Life
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Needless to say, life was hard for slaves.
They worked hard, 16 hour days. Many
times, the only things that slaves had, their
families, were torn apart. Sometimes
husbands and wives would be sold to
different plantations. Other times children
would be separated from their parents.
Many times, plantations became one big
family where everyone helped raise the
children.
Many slaves found their comfort in
Christianity. They liked stories like the
Hebrews escaping slavery.
Slaves did resist slavery. Most just did
things around the farm: they worked slowly,
they broke tools, they destroyed crops and
stole food. There were some violent
rebellions too. A slave named Nat Turner
led a group of slaves through the south
killing 57 whites. He and his followers were
caught and hanged. Revolts were rare,
however. Since whites were cautious and
well armed, a revolt by African Americans
had almost no chance of success.