I.
King Cotton
a. Eli Whitney
i. Developed cotton gin in 1793, reinvigorating the cotton industry
ii. Allowed for greater ease in separating seed from cotton tuft
1. Allowed for short-season staple cash crops
2. Spread cotton cultivation throughout the South, not just
areas that could grow the finicky crop
3. Resulted in rapid growth and high yield crops
b. Results
i. With more crops, required more labor
ii. Reinvigorated the slave system—cheap labor to harvest cotton
crops
iii. Cheap cotton available to the continental and international markets
iv. Cotton shipped to North, where there a nascent factory system was
developing
v. Greater international dependence on Southern crops, particularly
France and Spain
vi. Northern freight ships responsible for international shipping
vii. ***Regional specialization of work***
II.
The creation of the “planter aristocracy”
a. Consolidating property
i. More efficient land management and crop production through large
plantation systems
ii. South responsible for 50%+ of all cotton production
iii. Majority of land held by approx. 1700 families
iv. Decentralized social settlements—few large urban centers, ports,
factories, canals, and roads
b. Aristocratic pretensions
i. Created elite through the creation of new Southern institutions
1. Developed private/charter schooling systems for rich families
2. Educated women in math, science, bookkeeping,
administration (to support the plantation economy)
3. Educated men in Classics—Latin, Greek, rhetoric, law, and
languages (to support states’ craft and civic participation, to
justify system)
4. Adhered to feudal ideology—Cult of true womanhood,
chivalry, fealty, etc.
ii. Results of planter pretenses
1. Increased isolation of plantation owners contributes to antifederalist/states’ rights sentiments
2. Increased social isolation—owners are out of touch with
what is actually going on within their own plantations, and
throughout the U.S.
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3. Increased tension between planter elite and all other social
groups (eg. Small farmers had to sell land to prevent
foreclosure, Slaves, etc)
c. Slave society
i. Planter aristocrats—owned 100+slaves, most of the land (see
above)
ii. Small farmers—owned fewer than 10 slaves, nearly disappeared by
1860, often toiled beside their slaves
iii. Non-slaveholding whites—75% of white Southern population, often
considered hillbillies, crackers, and poor white trash—most staunch
supporters of slavery—as American Dream
iv. Mountain whites—isolated minority, considered both plantation
owners and slaves as an abomination
v. Free blacks—small minority, usually mulattoes in the Upper South,
despised and marginalized by most other social groups (approx.
250,000)
1. Ancestrally free
2. Mulattooes
3. Freed/emancipated slaves (Frederick Douglass)
vi. Slaves/human chattels—approx. 4 million
1. Growth through natural reproduction and selective breeding
2. Considered a commodity—rarely did risky/diseased work
(left for Irish/wage earners)
III.
Acquiring Slaves
a. The slave market
i. Slaves were purchased at auctions, similar to those for livestock
ii. Prized characteristics
1. Broad shoulders
2. Small head
3. Long arms
4. Some English
5. Obedience
6. No beating marks/whip marks/scars
7. Fertility
iii. The brutality of slave auctions were characterized in Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
1. Anti-slavery propaganda
2. Galvanized public opinion in the North and abroad,
particularly in Britain and France where slavery had long
been abolished
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b. The Eugenics Movement and Slavery
i. Eugenics was preliminary genetic manipulation, or selective
breeding to exacerbate certain characteristics
ii. Used to breed healthy, strong slaves
iii. Required scrutinized intimacy
iv. Genetic/physical characteristics (esp. after Darwin) used to justify
the existence of slaves
1. Small heads—smaller cranial capacity=smaller brain
2. Long arms—adapted trait used for cultivation, in Africa and
in the U.S.
3. Broad shoulders—inherent strength for lifting
4. Language—Clicks, chatters, and moans denote
undeveloped brain
5. Difficult to train—many tried to runaway, req’d punishment,
continued to practice native religions, songs, ceremonies
(clandestinely and at great risk)
IV.
Treatment of slaves
a. Daily life—Field
i. Field labor the most strenuous, with penalties resulting if quota not
filled
1. Although slaves could take breaks, it was rarely
recommended because of interrupting production
2. Didn’t want to pick too much, too fast=increased quota for
everyone
3. Child rearing, bowel movements, rudimentary education, and
worship occurred while in the field
ii. Began before sunrise, ended after sunset
iii. Nutrition=subsistence, with some small kitchen gardens to
supplement foodstuffs provided on monthly basis by owner
iv. All other activities needed to be done on slaves time—mending,
tending to children, healing, ritual ceremonies
v. Dance, music, and conversation prohibited—considered a threat to
status quo
b. Enforcement
i. Slaves were valuable and expensive
ii. Beatings
1. Not in best interests to beat slaves excessively
2. Usually just enough to enforce submission
3. Looked bad to other plantation owners
a. Couldn’t keep control of his slaves
b. Considered brutish and not aristocratic
c. City and domestic slaves were better off than field
slaves
i. Often had better nutrition
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ii. Some education—literacy—in order to educate
children, go on errands
iii. Deprivation
1. Environmental: Malnutrition, cholera, dysentery, intestinal
worms, STDs, and scurvy were most common
2. Social: Not allowed marriage, shared language (to inhibit
communication), holidays, religious observance, and musical
instruments (remind them of native land and culture)origin
of blues, gospel, and call and response, homemade
instruments, cultivation of percussive communication
(drums), voodoo
V.
Justification and Resistance
a. Justification for slave system—“The Peculiar Institution”
i. Eugenics and biological Darwinism—slaves were physically inferior
to whites
ii. Social Darwinism—Social status indicated social sophistication
(eg., Planter aristocracy=more successful, best at what they do,
slaves had to be beaten in order to work=inherent laziness)
iii. Historical—Slaves always existed, and all great societies
(Republics and Empires) were built on the backs of slave labor
(Greece, Rome, Egypt)
iv. Traditional—The South always had slaves
v. Religious—Slaves were not Christian, and thus, were not quite
human
vi. Slaves were illiterate and uncultured: they didn’t know what they
missed
vii. Legal—Slaves were property, and thus, enjoyed the same
privileges and treatment as any other piece of property
viii. Constitutional—Slaves designated apportionment in Congress,
validated a State’s right to choose/rule
b. Resistance to slavery
i. Local resistance
1. Sabotage
2. Runaway
3. Murder
ii. Organized resistance--Rebellions
1. Denmark Vesey
2. Nat Turner
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iii. Organized African-American resistance—Abolitionism
1. Frederick Douglass—runaway slave, writer of the Narrative
Life of F.D.
2. Sojourner Truth—Allied with white abolitionism in North
3. Booker T. Washington—Separate But Equal—Tuskeegee
and African-American self-betterment
iv. Abolitionism
1. Foundation of Liberia (1822)—African refuge for deported
ex-slaves
2. Second Great Awakening (1830s)—Religious revivalism
attempted to extend Christianity (and its tenents) to slaves
and the treatment of slaves
3. Women’s Suffrage (1840s)—Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Susan B. Anthony—strength in numbers, avoid
hypocrisy
4. Radical Abolitionism (1830s-40s)—William Lloyd Garrison
and Harriet Beecher Stowe—often marginalized
5. Underground Railroad (1850s)—Response to Dred Scott
Decision and Compromise of 1850
6. In general:
a. Most Northerners abhorred slavery as barbaric, but
was unwilling to take the strong stand for abolition
b. Most Northern politicians didn’t want to alienate voters
and force secessionism
c. Most Northern businessmen depended on cheap
Southern cotton for domestic production
d. Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin—advertised the
brutality of slavery and influenced Europe (France
and Britain) from intervening on behalf of the South
VI.
Political Doldrums
a. Twilight of the “Senatorial Giants”
i. Clay and Douglas argued concession and compromise, despite
Clay being 73 in 1850—would soon die
ii. Calhoun died of TB—argued popular sovereignty, nullification, and
the rights of the South
iii. Webster—7th of May Speech—argued slavery was irrelevant in the
new territories since they could not cultivate cotton
b. “Young Guard”
i. Young Northern politicians who argued for purification from the
slave system and compromise
ii. Seward and Pres. Taylor—argued for “higher law” ending
compromise
c. Forcing the issue
i. After Pres. Taylor died in office, Pres. Millard Fillmore signed
Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Law, validating
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compromise, popular sovereignty, and the extension of slavery into
the territories
ii. Fugitive Slave Law galvanized Northern abolitionists
iii. The Transcontinental Railroad and the Kansas-Nebraska Act
1. To ensure economic expansion, political organization, etc,
railroad was proposed to connect the east and west coasts
2. Best route proposed by the South
a. To benefit Southern economy
b. Route to pass through territory purchased from
Mexico by Gadsden
c. Required the organization of Kansas-Nebraska
territories
3. Kansas-Nebraska Act
a. Allowed Kansas and Nebraska to become states—
slavery decided by popular sovereignty
b. Wrecked Missouri Compromise and Compromise of
1850
c. Created a territorial free-for-all: slavery up for grabs
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