Welcome
back!
Reminders about protocol in English class:
Have you been absent?
Do you plan to be absent?
It is your responsibility to . . . It is your responsibility to . . .
1. Get your make up
assignments from every teacher.
2. Do your make up
assignments by the due date.
3. Hand in your assignments
by the due date.
Any assignment not turned in will become a
zero in the grade book.
1. Check with the office.
2. Check with EACH teacher for
work to be done in advance.
3. Do your work according to
the teacher’s directions.
4. Hand in assignments per the
teacher’s directions.
Failure to hand in your work on time will
result in consequences.
Mrs. W’s policy is that you may hand in late work up to
two weeks after the assignments is due for 50% credit.
Also, failure to check with the teacher after your absence
will not excuse the work.
Welcome
back!
During this quarter, we will be reading
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
[LoFD] by Frederick Douglass.
Tasks today:
1.Hand in your literature books.
2.Pick up a LoFD book and tell Mrs. W. the
number when she asks for it.
3.Mrs. W. will hand out some papers and
explain them.
4.We’ll get started with the semester!
SLAVERY
IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA
antebellum: means "prewar", from the Latin ante, "before",
and bellum, "war.”
The term involves elements characteristic of the Southern
United States, especially the Old South, from after the
birth of the United States in the American Revolution, to
the start of the American Civil War.
SLAVERY IN ANTEBELLUM
AMERICA
 When Frederick Douglass was born
in 1818, slavery was already an old
institution in America.
 In 1619, the first 20 Africans landed
in Virginia from a Dutch ship.
 Previously other blacks had been
enslaved on the American continent,
but had come from Barbados.
 After the abolition of slavery in the
North, slavery had become the
“peculiar institution” of the South –
that is, an institution unique to
Southern society.
SLAVERY IN ANTEBELLUM
AMERICA
 Despite the hopes of some of the
Founding Fathers that slavery
might die out, in fact the institution
survived the crisis of the American
Revolution and rapidly expanded
westward.
 On the eve of the Civil War, the
slave population had risen to 4
million, its rate of natural increase
more than making up for the
prohibition in 1808 of further slave
imports from Africa.
SLAVERY IN ANTEBELLUM
AMERICA
 In the South as a whole, slaves
made up one third of the total
population and in the cotton
producing states of the Deep
South about one half.
 1850: Slavery had crossed the
Mississippi River and was
expanding rapidly in AK, LA,
and eastern TX.
 1860: One third of the nation’s
cotton crop was grown west of
the Mississippi River.
“COTTON IS KING”
 The Old South was the largest
and most powerful slave
society the modern world has
known.
 Its strength rested on a virtual
monopoly of cotton, the
South’s “white gold.”
 By the nineteenth century,
cotton had assumed an
unprecedented role in the
world’s economy.
“COTTON IS KING”
 About three-fourths of the
world’s cotton supply came
from the Southern USA.
 1830: Cotton had become the
most important American
export.
 On the eve of the Civil War, it
represented well over half of
total of American exports.
 1860: The economic
investment represented by the
slave population exceeded the
value of the nation’s factories,
railroads, and banks combined.
SLAVERY AND THE NATION
 1816: Henry Clay stated
“Slavery forms an
exception … to the general
liberty prevailing in the
United States”
 But Clay, like many of his
contemporaries,
underestimated slavery’s
impact in the entire nation.
SLAVERY AND THE NATION
 The “free states” had
ended slavery, but they
were hardly unaffected
by it.
 The Constitution
enhanced the power of
the South in the House
of Representatives and
Electoral College and
required all states to
return fugitive slaves
from bondage (3/5
Compromise/Fugitive
Slave Clause)
SLAVERY AND THE NATION
 Slavery shaped the lives
of all Americans, white
as well as black.
 It helped determine
where they lived, how
they worked, and under
what conditions they
could exercise their
freedom of speech,
assembly, and press.
SLAVERY AND THE NATION
 Northern merchants and manufacturers participated in the slave
economy and shared in the profits.
 Money earned in the cotton/slave trade helped finance industrial
development in the North..
 Northern ships carried cotton to NY and Europe, northern
bankers financed cotton plantations, north companies insured
slave property, and northern factories turned cotton into cloth.
 Northern manufacturers supplied cheap fabrics (“Negro cloth”) to
clothe the South’s slaves.
SLAVERY AND THE NATION
 Slavery led the South down a
very different path of economic
development than the North,
limiting the growth of industry,
discouraging immigrants from
entering the region, and
inhibiting technological
progress.
 Southern banks existed
primarily to help finance the
plantations.
 Southern railroads 
mostly consisted of
small lines that
brought cotton from
the interior to coastal
ports.
The South
 Yet the South’s
produced less than
economy was
hardly stagnant,
10% of the nation’s
manufactured
and slavery proved
goods.
very profitable for
most owners.
SLAVERY AND THE NATION
 Slavery’s economic centrality
for the South and the nation as
a whole formed a powerful
obstacle to abolition.
 Senator James Henry
Hammond of South Carolina
declared, “No power on earth
dares to make war upon it.
Cotton is king.”
THE OLD SOUTH:
SOME GENERALIZATIONS
THE OLD SOUTH:
SOME GENERALIZATIONS
 The further North, the
cooler the climate, the fewer
the slaves and the lower
commitment to maintaining
slavery.
 The further south, the
warmer the climate, the
more slaves, and the higher
commitment to maintaining
slavery.
THE OLD SOUTH: SOME
GENERALIZTIONS
 The southward flow of
slaves (from sales)
continued from 1790 to
1860.
 There was not a unified
South except for resistance
to outside interference
(federal government).
REGIONS OF THE SOUTH
THE BORDER STATES
 The Border
 Plantations were 
States were
scare; cotton
Delaware,
cultivation almost
Maryland,
nonexistent;
Kentucky, and
Tobacco was the
Missouri.
main cash crop.
Unionists would
overcome the
Secessionists during
and after the Civil
War.
THE BORDER STATES
 1850: Slaves accounted for 17% of
the population of the Border
States.
 There was an average of 5 slaves
per slaveholder.
 22% of white families owned
slaves.
 1850: Over 21% of Border State
blacks were free. Overall in the
South – 46% of blacks were free.
 Produced over 50% of South’s
industrial products.
THE MIDDLE SOUTH
 The Middle South: VA,
NC, TN, and AK.
 Each state had one section
resembling the Border States and
another resembling the Lower
South.
THE MIDDLE SOUTH
 Some industrial
 Unionists prevailed before the
production – used slave labor.
War; Secessionists prevailed after
War began.
THE MIDDLE SOUTH
 There were many
plantations in eastern VA
and western TN.
 1850: Slaves accounted for
30% of the population of
the Middle South.
 There was an average of 8
slaves per slaveholder.
 36% of white families
owned slaves.
THE LOWER SOUTH
 The Lower South: SC, FL,  Plantations were prevalent.
Cotton was king.
GA, AL, MS, LA, and TX.
 Most slaves were located in  Produced 95% of South’s cotton
and almost all of its sugar, rice,
the “cotton belt” or “black
and indigo crops.
belt”of the Deep South.
THE LOWER SOUTH
 Secessionists would prevail
after Lincoln’s election in 1860.
 1850: Slaves accounted for
47% of the Lower South’s
population.
 There was an average of 12
slaves per slaveholder.
 43% of white families owned
slaves.
THE LOWER SOUTH
 Less than 2% of Lower
South’s blacks were free.
 Lower South was the
area where the brutality
of slavery was most
harsh.
SOUTHERN SOCIETY
THE PLANTER ARISTOCRACY
 There was a huge gap
between rich and poor.
 South had a very poor
public education system
thus planters sent their
children to private
schools.
 Planters carried on the
“cavalier” tradition of
early VA.
 Planters: a landed genteel
class
THE PLANTER ARISTOCRACY
 The South was ruled
politically and
economically by wealthy
plantation owners.
 1850: Only 1,733 families
owned more than 100
slaves; yet they dominated
Southern politics.
 The South was the least
democratic region of the
country.
THE SOUTHERN WHITE MAJORITY
 75% of white
Southerners owned no
slaves.
 Mostly subsistence
farmers and did not
participate in the market
economy.
 Poorest were called
“white trash,”
“hillbillies,” or
“crackers.”
 Fiercely defended the
slave system as it proved
white superiority.
THE SOUTHERN WHITE MAJORITY
 Poor whites took comfort
that they were “equal” to
the planter class.
 They hoped someday to
own slaves.
 Slavery proved effective
in controlling blacks and
ending slavery might result in race
mixing and blacks competing with
whites for jobs.
FREE BLACKS OF THE SOUTH
 By 1860 free blacks
numbered about 250,000.
 In the Border South,
emancipation increased
starting in the late 1700s.
 In the Lower South, many
free blacks were mulattos –
white father and black
mother. This was evidence
of the sexual intimidation
and abuse by male
slaveholders.
FREE BLACKS OF THE SOUTH
 Some were able to
buy their freedom
from their labor after
hours. (Task System)
 Some owned
property.
 A few even owned
slaves though this
was very rare.
FREE BLACKS OF THE SOUTH
 Faced discrimination in the
South.
 They were prohibited from
certain occupations and from
testifying against whites in
court.
 They had no political rights.
 They were always in danger
of being forced back into
slavery by slave traders.
FREE BLACKS OF THE NORTH
 Free blacks numbered
about 250,000.
 Some states forbade their
entrance or denied them
public education.
 Most states denied them
suffrage.
FREE BLACKS OF THE NORTH
 Some states segregated blacks in
public facilities.
 They were especially hated by
Irish immigrants with whom
they competed with for jobs.
 Racist feelings often stronger in
the North than in the South.
 Much of Northern sentiment
against spread of slavery into
new territories due more to
intense racial prejudice than
humanitarianism.
FREE BLACKS
“The distinction
between slave and the
free is not great.”
~Frederick Douglass
THE PRO-SLAVERY IDEOLOGY
 In the 30 years before the
outbreak of the Civil War,
even as Northern criticism
of the “peculiar
institution”began to
deepen, pro-slavery thought
came to dominate Southern
public life
 Fewer and fewer white
Southerners shared the
view, common among the
Founding Fathers, that
slavery was, at best, “a
necessary evil.”
THE PRO-SLAVERY IDEOLOGY
 In 1837, John C. Calhoun
stated:
“Many in the South once
believed that slavery was a
moral and political evil…
That folly and delusion are
gone; we see it now in its
true light, and regard it as
the most safe and stable
basis for free institutions in
the world.”
THE PRO-SLAVERY IDEOLOGY
 Even those who had no
direct stake in slavery
shared with planters a deep
commitment to white
supremacy.
 Indeed, racism – the belief
that blacks were innately
inferior to whites and
unsuited for life in any
conditions other than
slavery – formed one pillar
of the pro-slavery ideology.
THE PRO-SLAVERY IDEOLOGY
 Most slaveholders also found
legitimation for slavery in
Biblical passages such as the
injunction that servants
should obey their masters.
 Others argued that slavery was
essential to human progress.
Without slavery, planters
would be unable to cultivate
the arts, sciences, and other
civilized pursuits.
Slavery in the Bible
Psalm 123:2 (NIV)): As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of
their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her
mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows
us his mercy.
Ephesians 6:9: And masters, treat your slaves in the same way.
Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both
their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism
with him.
Colossians 3:22: Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything;
and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their
favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
Slavery in the Bible
Colossians 4:1: Masters, provide your slaves with what is right
and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in
heaven.
Titus 2:9: Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in
everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them,
Slavery in the Bible
1 Peter 2:18: Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all
respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also
to those who are harsh.
Slaveowners would read these verses to slaves as part of the
worship services that they allowed (and controlled) as a means of
encouraging the proper attitude among their slaves. Based upon
these isolated verses, slaveowners claimed that the Bible
supported slavery and taught slaves to be obedient to their
masters.
http://www.reunionblackfamily.com/apps/blog/show/7183511-biblical-verses-used-by-slave-masters-to-justifyslavery
THE PRO-SLAVERY IDEOLOGY
 Still other defenders of
slavery insisted that the
institution guaranteed
equality for whites by
preventing the growth of a
class doomed to the life of
unskilled labor.
 They claimed to be
committed to the ideal of
freedom.
THE PRO-SLAVERY IDEOLOGY
 Slavery for blacks, they
claimed, was the surest
guarantee of “perfect equality”
among whites, liberating them
from the “low, menial” jobs
like factory labor and
domestics service by wage
laborers of the North.
 Slavery made possible the
considerable degree of
economic autonomy enjoyed
not only by planters but by
non-slaveholding whites.
LIFE UNDER SLAVERY
SLAVES AND THE LAW
 For slaves, the “peculiar
institution”meant a life
of incessant toil, brutal
punishment, and the
constant fear that families
would be destroyed by
sale (slavery’s greatest
psychological horror).
 Before the law, slaves
were property.
SLAVES AND THE LAW
 Although they had a few legal
rights (all states made it illegal
to kill a slave except in selfdefense, and slaves accused of
serious crimes were entitled to
their day in court before all
white juries), these were
haphazardly enforced.
 Slaves could be sold or leased
by their owners at will and
lacked any voice in the
governments that ruled them.
SLAVES AND THE LAW
 By 1830, it was a crime to teach
a slave to read or write. Not all
these laws were rigorously
enforced.
 Some members of slaveholding
families taught children to read
and write – although rather few
since well over 90% of the slave
population was illiterate in
1860.
SLAVE LABOR
SLAVE LABOR
 Slavery was a system of labor, “from sunup to first
dark,” with only brief interruptions for meals, work
occupied most of the slaves’ time.
 The large majority of slaves – 75% of women and
nearly 90% of men – worked in the fields.
 Large plantations were diversified communities
where slaves performed all kinds of work.
SLAVE LABOR
 The precise
organization of their
labor varied according
to the crop and size of
the holding.
 On small farms, the
owner often toiled
side-by-side with his
slaves.
SLAVE LABOR
 The largest concentration
of slaves, however, lived
and worked on the
plantations in the Cotton
Belt, where men, women
and children labored in
gangs, often under the
direction of an overseer
and perhaps a slave
“driver” who assisted him.
SLAVE LABOR
 Among slaves, overseers had a
reputation for meting out harsh
treatments.
 Solomon Northup, a free black
who was kidnapped from the
North and spent twelve years in
slavery recalled, “The requisite
qualifications for an overseer are
utter heartlessness, brutality, and
cruelty. It is his business to
produce large crops, no matter
[what the] cost.”
MAINTAINING ORDER
 Slave owners employed a variety of
means in their attempt to maintain order
and discipline among their human
property and persuade them to labor
productivity.
 Their system rested on force. Masters
had almost complete discretion in
inflicting punishment, and rare was the
slave who went through his or her life
without experiencing a whipping.
 Any infraction of plantation rules, no
matter how minor, could be punished by
the lash.
MAINTAINING ORDER
 Subtle means of control supplemented violence.
 Owners encouraged and exploited divisions
among slaves, especially between field hands
and house servants.
 They created a system of incentives that
rewarded good work with time off or even
payments – in Virginia a slaveholder paid 10
cents a day for good work.
MAINTAINING ORDER
 The slave owed the master complete respect and
absolute obedience.
 No aspect of their lives, from the choice of
marriage partners to how they spent their free
time, was immune from the master’s interference.
 The entire system of southern justice was
designed to enforce the master’s control over
the person and labor of his slaves.
THE “CRIME” OF CELIA
 Celia was a slave who killed her master while resisting
a sexual assault.
 Missouri state law deemed “any woman” in such
circumstances to be acting in self-defense.
 But, the court ruled that Celia was not a woman.
 She was a slave, whose master had complete power
over her person.
 The Court sentenced her to death.
 However, since Celia was pregnant, her execution was
postponed until her child had been born, so as to not
deprive her owner’s heir of their property rights.
MAINTAINING ORDER
 Few slave societies in
history have so
systematically closed all
avenues to freedom as the
Old South.
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY
 In spite of their difficulties, slaves did not placidly accept
the system under which they were compelled to live.
 Resistance to slavery took
many forms in the Old South,
from individual acts of
defiance to occasional
uprisings.
 These actions posed a
constant challenge to the
slaveholders’ self-image as
benign paternalists and their belief that slaves were
obedient subjects grateful for their owners’ care.
FORMS OF RESISTANCE
 The most widespread expression of hostility to slavery was “dayto-day resistance” or “silent sabotage”--doing poor work,
breaking tools, abusing animals, and in other ways disrupting the
plantation routine.
 Many slaves made believe that they were to ill to work – although
almost no slaves reported themselves sick on Sunday, their only
day of rest.
 Then there was the theft of food, a form of resistance so
common that one southern physician diagnosed it as a hereditary
disease unique to blacks.
 Less frequent, but more dangerous, were serious crimes
committed by slaves, including arson, poisoning, and armed
assaults against individual whites.
FUGITIVE SLAVES
 Even more
threatening to the
ability of the slave
system was running
away.
 Formidable obstacles
confronted the
prospective fugitive.
FUGITIVE SLAVES
 Solomon Northup
recalled“Every white
man’s hand is raised
against him, the
patrollers are
watching for him, the
hounds are ready to
follow in his track.”
 Slaves had little or no
knowledge of
geography, apart from
understanding that the
North Star led to
freedom.
FUGITIVE SLAVES
 No one knows how
many slaves
succeeded in
reaching the North
or Canada – the
most common rough
estimate is around
1,000 per year.
FUGITIVE SLAVES
 Not surprisingly, most of
those who succeeded lived,
like Frederick Douglass, in
the Upper South especially
MD, VA, and KY, which
bordered on the free states.
FUGITIVE SLAVES
 The large majority of
runaways were young
men.
 Most women were not
willing to leave children
behind, and to take them
along on the arduous
escape journey was
nearly impossible.
FUGITIVE SLAVE ADS
THE UNDERGROUND
RAILROAD
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
 The Underground
Railroad was a loose
organization of
sympathetic
abolitionists who hid
fugitives in their homes
and sent them to the
next “station” assisted
some runaway slaves.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
 A few courageous
individuals made forays
into the South to liberate
slaves.
 The best known was
Harriet Tubman.
 Born in Maryland in 1820,
she escaped to PA in 1849.
 She made twenty trips into
slave territory to lead
slaves to freedom.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
 But most who managed
to reach the North did
so on their own
initiative, some showing
remarkable ingenuity.
 William and Ellen Craft
impersonated a sickly
owner traveling with her
slave.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
SLAVE REVOLTS
 Resistance to slavery occasionally moved beyond such individual
and group acts to outright rebellion.
 The three largest conspiracies in American history occurred
within the space of 31 years in the early nineteenth century.
 Gabriel’s Rebellion
 Denmark Vessey Rebellion
 Nat Turner’s Rebellion
THE AMISTAD
 In a few instances, large groups of slaves
collectively seized their freedom.
 The most celebrated instance involved 53
slaves who took control of the Amistad –
a ship transporting them from one port in
Cuba to another, and tried to force the
navigator to steer it to Africa.
 The central issue was whether or not the captives freemen or
slaves. If it was determined they were slaves, they would be
returned to Cuba/Spain. If not they would be free.
 Former President John Quincy Adams defended the slaves before
the Supreme Court.
 In the end the Supreme Court determined that the Africans had
been kidnapped and brought to American shores unlawfully and
that they were free.
THE ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
 The Abolitionist Movement
began in the North.
 The goal was to end slavery.
 Some Abolitionists called for
an immediate end to slavery.
 Others called for a gradual end
and colonization of freed slaves
outside of America.
 The Movement was influenced
by the reform fervor of the
Second Great Awakening.
COLONIZATION
 The American
Colonization Society
promoted the gradual
abolition of slavery
and the settlement of
black Americans in
Africa.
 It soon established
Liberia, on the coast of
West Africa, an
outpost of American
influence whose capital
Monrovia, was named
for President James
COLONIZATION
 Numerous prominent political
leaders of the Jackson Era, such as
Henry Clay and President
Jackson, supported the
colonization society.
 Many northerners saw
colonization as the only way to rid
the nation of slavery.
 Southern supporters devoted most
of their energy to persuading
those African-Americans who
were already free to leave the
United States.
COLONIZATION
 But most African-Americans
adamantly opposed the idea
of colonization.
 1817: Some 3,000 free blacks
assembled in Philadelphia for
the first national black
convention.
 Their resolutions insisted
that blacks were Americans,
entitled to the same
freedom and rights
enjoyed by whites.
THE EMERGENCE OF
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
 1831: With the
appearance of The
Liberator, William Lloyd
Garrison’s weekly
abolitionist journal, the
new breed of
abolitionism found a
permanent voice.
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
 His pamphlet, Thoughts on African
Colonization, persuaded many foes
of slavery that blacks must be
recognized as part of American
society, not viewed as aliens to be
shipped overseas.
 Other antislavery publications soon
emerged, but the Liberator remained
the preeminent abolitionist
journal.
A NEW VISION OF AMERICA
 Frederick Douglass escaped
slavery.
 In spite of being held in slavery,
he managed to escape.
 He worked as a black
abolitionist.
 As with any other large effort,
the various leaders disagreed on
how this should be
accomplished.
A NEW VISION OF AMERICA
 Frederick Douglass came to
believe the Constitution offered
no national protection to
slavery.
 But despite these differences of
opinion, abolitionists developed
an alternative, rights-oriented
view of constitutional law,
grounded in their universalistic
understanding of liberty.
 Abolitionists invented the
concept of equality before the
law regardless of race, one all
but unknown in Antebellum
America.
BLACK AND WHITE ABOLITIONISM