Chapter 10: The South and Slavery
Because the French took over the organized society of the Natchez Indians, the
Mississippi river became a major trading post that transported & brought various races
together- the cause of the interracial marriages, resulting in a mixed-race population.
Cotton revived the slave system in the newly industrialized world of early
American independence, becoming the dominant crop of the South, making a distinct
cultural difference than that of the North. The difficulty in removing the seeds from the
lint was demolished by the cotton gin in 1793, & shortly after “Alabama Fever” took hold
of the South. The quick western migration resulted in a doubled growth in population for
Mississippi, & a sixteen fold for Alabama. The Industrial Revolution was the result of
such high demands for cotton.
The tremendous growth of cotton plantations (“King Cotton”) changed the
characteristics of southern slave labor, & caused a huge increase within the domestic
slave trade. The phrase “sold down the rive” comes from slave owners having sold their
servants & shipped them in cargo boats down the Mississippi rover to the newly opened
cotton lands of the Southwest. In the beginning of the Old Southwest, most male slaves
would be out to work at cleaning land for the increasing “King Cotton”. Owners
organized twenty to twenty-five slaves into gangs, a communal labor pattern similar to
parts of Africa, the only difference being that they are now supervised by whip bearing
over-seers. They worked from “can see to can’t see”- sunup to sundown, usually eighteen
hour days, producing cotton at a rate of 150 pounds a day.
All though oppressed & working beside their enslavers, the slaves developed a
sense of community. The Second Great Awakening, in the 1790s, was a flourish in
religion, & a distinctive form of Christianity came about. Free African Americans
independently developed their own churches & denominations. Slave owners allowed
this to go on with the hopes that being of Christian religion, their slaves would be more
obedient.
But they weren’t. Slave revolts, such as Gabriel’s Rebellion & Nat Turner’s
Revolt, were the largest organized slave resistances. Most successful escapes were made
from the Upper South, & it was much harder for a slave to escape from the Lower South
& Southwest. Yet, they still attempted to flee & help others do so as well.
Important Places
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Mississippi River- major port/trading center; lead to the growth of a mixed-race
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population
The “black belt”- an area going though Georgia, Alabama, & Mississippi that
contained highly fertile soil, the reason behind “Alabama Fever”, which was a
western migration for cotton plantations
South Carolina- provoked the Nullification Crisis in 1830
Upper South- (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, & Tennessee) plantation
owners in these areas sold their slaves to meet the demands of the expanding cottongrowing regions of the Old Southwest (Mississippi & Alabama)
Richmond & Charleston- notorious for “slave pens”
Important People
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The Natchez Indians- owned Mississippi territory before being taken over by the
Spanish in 1763
Nat Turner- led an uprising of slaves in Virginia in 1831 that led to the death of 55
white people
Eli Whitney- invented the cotton gin, which revolutionized southern slave labor
Browns of Providence- a New England family who made fortunes in the slave trade
& invested their profits in the new textile manufacturers in the 1790s. The
manufacturers spun & wove cloth, causing huge demands for cotton, in which
revolutionized the world economy.
Boston Associates- financed the cotton textile mills at Lowell
Fredrick Douglass- a leader in the abolitionist movement; most famous African
American in his time
Reverend Absalom James & Reverend Richard Allen- founded the first African
American Baptist & Methodist churches in Philadelphia in 1794
Harriet Tubman- a runaway who made twelve rescue missions, freeing 60-70 slaves
in all, which later inflated to 300 rescued
Gabriel Prosser- organized a thousand slaves for an attack on Richmond, Virginia in
1800, but his revolt failed (Gabriel’s Rebellion)
William Gregg- tried to establish the cotton textile industry in South Carolina. In
1846, he built a model mill.
Joseph Anderson- managed the Tredgar Iron Works, near Richmond, & broke
southern precedent by using slave labor in the mills, proving slave workers could do
factory work
“yeomen” - term for a farmer who works on his own land; applied to independent
farmers of the South.
Key Terms
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Industrial Revolution- revolution in the means & organization of production
Gang System- the organization & supervision of slave field hands into working teams
on southern plantations
Second Great Awakening- religious revival among black & white southerners in the
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1790s
Gabriel’s Rebellion- slave revolt that failed when Gabriel Prosser, a slave preacher &
blacksmith, organized a thousand slaves for an attack on Richmond, Virginia, in 1800
Nat Turner’s Revolt- uprising of slaves in Southampton County, Virginia, in the
summer of 1831 led by Nat Turner that resulted in the death of fifty-five white people
Black codes- laws passed by states & municipalities denying many rights of
citizenship to free black people before the Civil War
Yeoman- independent farmers of the South, most of whom lived on family-sized
farms
Denmark Vesey’s conspiracy- the most carefully devised slave revolt in which rebels
planned to seize control of Charleston in 1822 & escape to freedom in Haiti, a free
black republic, but they were betrayed by other slaves, & seventy-five conspirators
were executed
Timeline
1790s
 Second Great Awakening
 Black Baptist & African Methodist Episcopal churches founded
1793
 Invention of the cotton gin
1800
 Gabriel Prosser’s revolt discovered Virginia
1806
 Virginia tightens law on manumission of slaves
1808
 Congress prohibits U.S. participation in the international slave trade
1819-20
 Missouri Crisis
 Denmark Vesey’s conspiracy in Charleston
1831
 Nat Turner’s revolt in Virginia
 William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing antislavery newspaper, the Liberator
1832
 Nullification Crisis
1832-38
 “Flush Times”: second wave of westward expansion
1832
 Virginia legislature debates & defeats a measure for gradual emancipation
1834
 Britain frees slaves throughout the empire, including in its Caribbean colonies
1835
 Charleston crowd burns abolitionist literature
 Tightening of black codes completed by southern legislatures
1836
 Congress passes “gag rule” to prevent discussion of antislavery petitions
 James Henry Hammond announces to Congress that slavery isn’t evil
1846
 William Gregg opens model textile mill at Graniteville, South Carolina
1854
 George Fitzhugh publishes Sociology for the South, a defense of slavery
1857
 Hinton Helper publishes The Impending Crisis, an attack on slavery
 James Henry Hammond’s “King Cotton” speech