APUSH
Dr. I. Ibokette
The Peculiar Institution: An Overview
1. Differences between slavery and slave trade and its origins in the New World
a. Process: commercial
 the “triangular trade”
 the “middle passage”
 New World
b. Institution: Economic and Social
c. Connection between slavery and racism
d. Economic origins of New World Slavery
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2. Slavery 1619-1865:
a. Origins and Raison d’être
David Christy, Cotton is King (1856). Christy’s basic argument is that the
centrality of cotton to the Southern economy could not be maintained profitably by free
labor and that the worldwide increase in the demand for cotton, which was largely met
by the South, necessitated a vast enlargement of cultivation requiring an increased
amount of labor. He concluded that the importance of cotton and the concomitant slave
labor system was such that slavery could not be abolished.
b. Characteristics:
i. Social
Frederick Douglass, The Narrative…
- the “peculiar institution” : family structure; social status (chattel, personal
property); brutality (physical, sexual, psychological)
“… Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct
me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to
teach a slave to read. … A [n word] should know nothing but to obey his master – to do
as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best [n word] in the world…. If you teach
that [n word] how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to
be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable and of no value to his master…. As
to himself, it would do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him
discontented and unhappy….”
ii. Demography
Demography of Slave states, 1854:
White pop.
6.2 million
Slave pop.
3.2 million
Free AA
.2 million
Demography of Cotton States, 1854 (SC, GA, FL, AL, MI, LA, AR, TX)
White pop.
2.1 million
Slave pop.
1.8 million
Free AA
.3 million
c. Politics:
The South’s “psychological pattern” or sense of being was challenged by the
rapidly changing socio-economic patterns from the early nineteenth century. The entire
country was undergoing a process of change manifested in industrialization and
urbanization. Given the importance of slave labor to the southern economy; and given
the centrality of the institution of slavery to the southern society as a whole, how did the
South, predicated upon its “peculiar institution” respond to these changes?
i. Three-Fifth Compromise & Commercial Compromise
ii. the 1820 Missouri Compromise
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iii. the 1848 Wilmot Proviso
iv. the 1850 Compromise and the Fugitive Slave Act
v. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
vi. the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act
vii. the 1857 Dred Scott’s Decision
viii. John Brown’s Harpers Ferry (1859)
ix. President Lincoln’s Election and Secession (1860/61)
3. Regulations:
“regulations governing the behavior of blacks both slave and free, increase in
severity as the density of the black population increased”
The South Carolina Negro Act of 1740:
-limited freedom of movement, assembly;
-freedom to raise their own food, earn money, learn and read English
Slave Codes (1831/32):
a) slaves cd not assemble
b) cd not leave the plantation w/out written permission
c) cd not learn to read and write
d) cd not own weapons
e) slave owners could not be tried for “correcting” their slaves
Black Codes: Free Blacks legally limited:
a) required to carry identification passes
b) post bonds to be of good behavior
c) cd not vote or hold public meetings
d) cd not speak in public
e) cd not bear arms
f) cd not testify in court against whites
g) forbidden to attend all-black churches unless a white person was present
h) prevented from becoming literate
Population:
1730 – 3/10 of the pop. of s. PA was black
-2:1 black/white ratio in S/Carolina
1860 – 10%of MO pop. was Black
o 59% in S/Carolina
o c. 260,000 free blacks in S. states
o c. 50% of these free blacks in the Border States
o less than 2% of the total black pop. in the Lower South was free
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o Baltimore had 25,000 free blacks and 2000 slaves during the 50s
o c. 4 million slaves in the South during the 50s
Major Slave Revolts:
a) 1739 – Stono Rebellion (S. Carolina)
b) 1800 – Gabriel Prosser (Richmond, VA)
1822 – Denmark Vessey (Charleston)
1831 – Nat Turner (Southampton,VA)
4. Abolitionism:
I. General:
a) b/4 the 1820s, most abolitionists favored a gradualist approach and were
very ambiguous about racial equality
b) most abolitionists did not believe that Blacks could fit into white Am.
society, hence the policy of repatriation
c) 1780/90s northeastern states abolished slavery
d) abolitionists focused on the revolutionary ideology of freedom and rights
e) 1807, the abolition of trans-Atlantic slave trade and the importation of
slaves into the USA
f) 1817 ACS founded
i.
advocated the voluntary freeing of slaves
ii.
raised funds to compensate slave owners
iii.
freed slaves to be repatriated to Liberia (founded in 1822)
iv.
Paul Cuffe, a Quaker from MA financed 28 repatriates
g) 1820s abolitionists mainly moderates and comprised mainly Quakers and
free blacks
h) 1830s and 40s, mounting opposition to slavery by northern abolitionists
II. Radical Abolitionism:
a) David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829)
b) By 1830 c. 50 Blacks anti-slavery groups
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c) 1831 William Lloyd Garrison founded the Liberator
d) 1833 Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society
e) 1836 Gag Rule passed in Congress
f) 1837 Elijah Paul Lovejoy lynched in Alton, Illinois
g) 1838 National Anti-Slavery Convention held in Philadelphia – the
Grimke sisters
h) 1840 The formation of Liberty Party: Arthur and Lewis Tappan & James
Birney: “universal emancipation to be gradually brought about through
legislation”
i) Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)
j)
the Underground Railroad: Douglass & Harriet Tubman
k) B/n 1849 & 57 Tubman undertook 19 trips into Maryland and liberated
300 slaves
From the mid-1840s all major aspects national politics, specifically the politics of
expansionism became more increasingly and inextricably intertwined with, and indeed
driven by strong sectional positions on slavery.
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