Slavery During the Antebellum Period
The South
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
primarily agrarian
economic power shifted from the “upper South” to the “lower South”
“Cotton Is King!” 1860 5 mil. bales/yr. (57% of total US exports)
very slow development of industrialization
rudimentary financial system
inadequate transportation system
Southern Society (about 40% of U.S. population)
“slavocracy” [plantation owners]
6 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0
“plain folk”[white yeoman farmers]
black freemen - 250,000
black slaves – 3,200,000
Border South: DE, MD, KY, MO
1. plantations scarcer; cotton cultivation almost nonexistent;
2. tobacco main crop, more grain production (as in Middle South)
3. produced over of South’s industrial products
Middle South: VA, NC, TE, AR
1. each state had one section resembling the Border South and
another resembling the Lower South
2. some industrial production: Tredegar Iron Works in Virginia used
slave labor
3. many plantations in eastern Virginia and western Tennessee
Lower/Deep South: SC, FL, GA, AL, MI, LA, TX
1. most slaves located in the "black belt" of Deep South along river
valleys
2. plantations prevalent
a. cotton was king
b. grew 95% of South's cotton & almost all sugar, rice, and indigo
Slaves as %
of Total
Population
Avg.
Slaves
Held by
Slaveowner
% of
Blacks
That Were
Free
% White
Families
Owning
Slaves
% Owning
20+ Slaves
% of
South’s
Industrial
Production
% of
“Ultrawealthy”
Whites
Border South
17%
5
21%
22%
6%
50%
1%
Middle South
30%
8
???
36%
32%
30%
14%
Deep South
47%
12
2%
43%
62%
20%
85%
The Planter "Aristocracy"
1. wealthy plantation owners ruled politically and economically
2. South was least democratic region of the country
a. huge gap between rich & poor
b. poor public education
3. planters carried on "cavalier" tradition of early Virginia
a. reflected in its military academies
b. elite culture included chivalry; landed genteel-class
Plantation system
1. required heavy investment of capital
2. still risky slaves might die of disease, injure themselves, or run away
3. one-crop economy
a. discouraged diversification of agriculture, especially manufacturing
b. Southerners resentful North made huge profits at their expense
c. complained of northern middlemen, bankers, agents, & shippers
d. resented being so dependent on northern manufactures & markets
4. repelled large-scale European immigration
a. slave labor was far cheaper
b. fertile land was too expensive for most immigrants
c. immigrants not familiar with cotton production
d. South most Anglo-Saxon region of nation
Plantation slavery
1. Nearly 4 million slaves by 1860; quadrupled in number since 1800
a. legal imports of slaves ended in 1808
b. increase due to natural reproduction
i. “over-breeding” of slaves not encouraged
ii. owners still often rewarded slave women for many children
iii. white slaveowners often fathered sizable mulatto
population (miscegenation) most remained slaves
2. Slaves seen as valuable assets and primary source of wealth
a. slave auctions one of most revolting aspects of slavery
i. division of property, bankruptcy
ii. families often separated:
iii. slavery’s greatest psychological horror
3. punishment often brutal to intimidate slaves not to defy master’s authority
4. new western areas became harshest for slaves: LA, TX, MS, AL
5. Afro-American slave culture developed, despite oppression
The White Majority
1. 75% of white southerners owned no slaves at all
2. fiercely defended the slave system as it proved white superiority
a. poor whites took comfort that they were "equal" to wealthy neighbors
b. social status was determined by slaves owned: poor Southern whites someday hoped to own slaves
c. slavery proved effective in controlling blacks
d. ending slavery might result in race mixing and blacks competing with whites for work
3. “mountain whites”
a. independent small farmers located far from the cotton kingdom in rough frontier environment
b. hated wealthy planters and slaves
Free Blacks
1. about 250,000 in the North by 1860
a. some states forbade their entrance or denied them public
education
b. most states denied them suffrage
c. some states segregated blacks in public facilities
d. especially hated by Irish immigrants with whom they
competed with for jobs
e. much of Northern sentiment against spread of slavery into
new territories due to intense race prejudice, not
humanitarianism racist feelings often stronger in the
North than in the South
2. about 250,000 in the South by 1860
a. in Border South, emancipation increased starting in the late 18th century
b. in Lower South, many free blacks were mulattos (white father, black mother)
c. some had purchased their freedom with earnings from labor after hours
d. some owned property; New Orleans had large prosperous mulatto community
e. prohibited from certain occupations and from testifying against whites in court
f. always in danger of being forced back into slavery by slave traders
Slave Revolts
Stono Rebellion (1739)
Gabriel Prosser (1800)
Denmark Vesey (1822)
Nat Turner (1831)
Significance: Produced a wave of anxiety among southern plantation owners that resulted in harsh laws clamping down
further on the slave institution.
Abolitionism (definition: movement in North that demanded immediate end to slavery)
1. Abolitionism became the dominant reform movement of the antebellum period
a. Second Great Awakening convinced abolitionists of the sin of slavery
b. Abolitionists inspired that Britain freed their West Indian slaves in 1833
2. American Colonization Society (est. 1817)
a. recolonization supported by many prominent Northerners and Southerners
b. afraid that manumission would create surplus of free blacks in U.S.
c. Liberia established on West African Coast for former slaves in 1822
d. 15,000 freed blacks transported over next four decades
e. most U.S. blacks not eager to go; saw themselves as Americans
i. believed they were part of America’s growth; had American culture
ii. by 1860, virtually all southern slaves were native-born Americans
f. Colonization appealed to most Northerners (including Lincoln) who felt blacks and whites could not coexist in a
free society
a. Some feared a “mongrelization” of the white race
b. Others thought blacks inferior, didn't want them in large #’s in their states
Radical Abolitionism
1. William Lloyd Garrison
a. published The Liberator, a militant antislavery newspaper in Boston
b. demanded the "virtuous" North secede from the "wicked" South
c. yet offered no practical solutions for ending slavery
d. inspired abolitionists to found the American Anti-Slavery Society
2. American Anti-Slavery Society
a. Theodore Dwight Weld
i. evangelized by Charles Grandison Finney in NY’s Burned-Over District in 1820s
ii. appealed to rural farmers in the Ohio Valley.
iii. American Slavery As It Is (1839): Among most effective abolitionist works
iv. married Angelina Grimke, a southern abolitionist
b. Wendell Phillips "
i. "abolition’s golden trumpet
ii. perhaps most important abolitionist
major impact on politics during the Civil War for emancipation
iii. followed Garrison but became more politically practical in 1860s..
c. Angelina and Sarah Grimke
i. only white southern women to become leading abolitionists
ii. also involved in women’s rights.
iii. Angelina married to Theodore Weld; Sarah remained part of their household
d. Arthur and Lewis Tappan
i. wealthy New York silk merchants
ii. funded the Anti-Slavery Society, and The Liberator
e. organization would eventually split along gender lines; women’s rights issues
3. David Walker
a. Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) advocated violence to end slavery
4. Sojourner Truth
a. freed black woman; pro-emancipation & women’s rights
5. Elijah Lovejoy
a. militant editor of antislavery newspaper in Illinois
b. printing press destroyed four times; 4th time press thrown into a river
c. killed by a mob who promptly burned his warehouse
d. became an abolitionist martyr
6. Martin Delaney
a. one of few blacks to seriously advocate black mass recolonization in Africa
7. Frederick Douglass
a. published The North Star, his own abolitionist newspaper
b. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
c. flexibly practical (in contrast to Garrison who was stubbornly principled)
d. looked to politics to end slavery backed the Liberty party in 1840 and the Republican
party in the 1850s
8. eventually, most abolitionists support the Civil War to end slavery
The Underground Railroad
1. existed as early as 1786
2. started by the Quakers and spread through most of the North by 1830
3. approx. 50,000 African Americans escaped between 1830 and 1860
4. provided food, shelter, and hiding places to runaway slaves as they escaped to Canada
a. “Conductor” = leader of the escape
b. “Passengers” = escaping slaves
c. “Tracks” = routes
d. “Trains” = farm wagons transporting the escaping slaves
e. “Depots” = safe houses to rest/sleep
5. Harriet Tubman (1820-1913)
a. helped over 300 slaves to freedom
b. $40,000 bounty on her head
c. served as a Union spy during the Civil War
6. violated the Fugitive Slave Law
The Monkey Wrench
pattern alerted escapees
to gather up tools and
prepare to flee.
The Drunkard Path
design warned
escapees not to follow
a straight route.
“Follow the Drinking Gourd”
Follow the drinking gourd,
Follow the drinking gourd,
For the old man is a-waiting for to take you to freedom,
If you 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.
The riverbank will make a very good road,
The dead trees show you the way,
Left foot, peg foot, traveling on,
Follow the drinking gourd
Where the great big river meets the little river,
Follow the drinking gourd,
The old man is a-waiting for to take you to freedom,
If you follow the drinking gourd.
Southern Responses to Abolitionism
1. after 1830s , white southern abolitionism was silenced
2. South saw a northern abolitionist conspiracy and called Garrison a terrorist (GA offered $5,000 for his arrest/conviction)
3. Southerners concerned powerful federal gov't might supported abolitionism (Nullification Crisis of 1832)
4. anti-slavery whites in the South sometimes jailed, whipped, or lynched
5. 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
6. pro-slavery whites responded by launching a massive defense of slavery
a. supported by the Bible (Genesis) and Aristotle (slavery existed in ancient Greece)
b. helped civilize and Christianize Africans
c. master-slave relationships resembled those of a "family"
7. George Fitzhugh most famous pro-slavery apologist
8. "gag resolution" (1836)
a. antislavery appeals and petitions in Congress prohibited
b. seen by northerners as a threat to the 1st Amendment
c. Rep. John Quincy Adams waged 8-year fight against it
d. repealed in 1844
Abolitionist Impact in the North
1. abolitionists, esp. Garrison, were unpopular in many parts of the North
a. Northerners revered the Constitution; slavery was protected by it
b. ideal of Union (advocated by Webster & others) had taken deep root
c. Garrison's cries to secede from the South was seen as dangerously radical
d. Northern industry dependent on the South for economic well-being
e. Northern bankers owed by southern planters; about $300 million
f. New England mills fed by southern cotton
2. mob outbursts occurred in response to extreme abolitionists
a. Lewis Tappan’s NY house ran-sacked in 1834 to a cheering crowd
b. Garrison dragged through streets of Boston with rope tied around him
c. Elijah P. Lovejoy killed in Illinois
3. for ambitious politicians, support of abolitionism was political suicide
4. by 1850, abolitionism significantly influenced the northern mind
a. many saw slavery as morally evil and undemocratic
b. Free-soilers opposed extending slavery to remaining Louisiana Territory and
Mexican Cession
c. "Free-soil" movement grew into the Republican Party in the 1850s