THE
ANTEBELLUM
SOUTH
THE OLD SOUTH & SLAVERY
1820-1860
Slaves were expensive.
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Slaves were a major investment for slaveowners.
1845: 18-year-old healthy male slave:
~$15,000 2014 Dollars
U.S. law and society was designed to protect
slave-owners investment, not the slave
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Fugitive Slave laws (in the Constitution!)
Later, stronger fugitive slave laws
Most Southerners didn’t own
slaves.
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Only 25% of southern families owned
slaves.
So why did Southerners fight so hard to
keep slavery?
Slaves were not “happy” or
“better off” because of slavery
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How do we know?
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Writings left by slaves
Accounts from escaped slaves
Slave revolts
Slave suicides
This argument was commonly heard
during slavery, and even today.
A. The Southern Economy
1. Primarily agrarian
2. Economic power shifted from the “upper
South” to the “lower South”
3. “Cotton Is King!”
 1860 - 5 million Bales exported per year
(57% of US exports)
Value of Cotton Exports
As a Percentage of All U.S. Exports
A. The Southern Economy
4. Very slow development of industry
5. Rudimentary financial system.
6. Economic dependence on North
7. Inadequate transportation system.
B. SOUTHERN SOCIETY
“Slavocracy”
6,000,000
[plantation owners,
small slaveowners]
The “Plain Folk”
[white yeoman farmers, tenant
farmers,sandhillers,hill people]
Black Freemen
250,000
Black Slaves
3,200,000
Total US Population --> 23,000,000
[9,450,000 in the South = 40%]
(1850)
Slave-Owning Families (1850)
B. WHITE SOCIETY & CULTURE
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Why did many Southerners support the
slave system when 75% didn’t own slaves?
Was there a change in attitude re slavery?
How did they justify slavery?
Who did NOT support the slave system?
Southern Yeoman farmer’s home
Plantation House, St. Mary’s, MD (1830s)
B. WHITE SOCIETY & CULTURE
3. Defense of Slavery & White Supremacy
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“necessary evil” → “positive good”
Legal & constitutional
History
Religious
Better than North – “wage slaves”
Black Inferiority
[Among Southerners] Elevated poor whites
Southern Pro-Slavery Propaganda
C. SLAVERY & SLAVE CULTURE
4. Slave Life & Culture
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Black Christianity [Baptists or Methodists]:
* more emotional worship services; negro spirituals.
Nuclear family with extended kin links, where
possible.
Importance of music in
their lives. [esp.spirituals].
Slave codes
Resistance
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Nat Turner
“Sambo”
Slave Rebellions and Uprisings, 1800-1831
Slave Cabin and Occupants Near Eufala,
Barbour County, Alabama