Chapter 11
APUSH
Mrs. Price
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for
slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it
tried on him personally.” – Abraham
Lincoln
Southern Economy
• Shift to Cotton
• Most important economic development
• Short-staple cotton
Shift in Economic Power: Lower South
• Upper South: relied on tobacco (unstable
market)
• Coastal South: relied on rice (irrigation,
long growing season)
• Gulf Coast: sugar (heavy competition)
Southern Agriculture
Value of Cotton Exports
As % of All US Exports
• In 1820s: cotton production spread rapidly
• By 1850s: most important Southern crop
• Dominated deep south & prompted
population migration
Other Economic Development
• Textile & Iron manufacturing
- Insignificant compared to agriculture
- Upper south
• Everything linked to plantation economy
Inadequate Transportation System
• Little investment in internal
improvements
• Few canals, roads unsuitable
• Railroads expanded in 1840s-1850s; most
lines short & local
• Principal means of transportation: water
• Some warned of unequal relationship
between North & South
• James B.D. DeBow
Why was the South so different?
• Profitability of agriculture
• Southerners had capital invested in land &
slaves
• Other arguments (climate, work habits)
White Society in the South
• Planter Class
• Small Farmers
• The Poor
Planter Class
• Whites who owned 40-50 slaves & 800+
acres
• Controlled political, economic, & social life
A Real Georgia Plantation
Small Farmers
•
•
•
•
“Plain Folk”
Owned few slaves; ¾ owned none
Planted subsistence or small cash crops
“Hill people”: backcountry, did not
support secession
%
80
About 1,150,000 Southern white
families owned no slaves---75%
70
60
50
40
30
20
About 384,000 Southern white
families owned 1 slave or more--25%
10
0
1
2+
5+
(Number of slaves)
Non Slaveholders
10+
20+
50+
Slaveholders
Total of 1,534,000 Southern white
families in 1860……A total population
of 7,981,000….
Chart: Total Deaths
•Out of the 25% of
slaveowners, here is
the breakdown of the
number of slaves.
•75% owned 1 to 9
slaves.
•22% owned 10 to 49
owned slaves.
•3% owned 50 or
more slaves.
384,000
Chart/slave owners
1860
The Poor
• 500,000 in 1850
• Lived on marginal lands
• Few owned lands
Free Blacks
•
•
•
•
1861: 250,000 in South
Mostly in VA & MD
Bought freedom or set free by masters
1833: laws changed & it became more
difficult to set free slaves (after Turner
Rebellion)
Slavery
• Isolated South from rest of American
society
• Slave codes: regulated slavery
(enforcement was spotty)
- Could not teach them to read or write
- Could not congregate after dark
- Could not own a firearm
•No political or civil rights to
protect slaves
•U.S. was the largest slave
institution in the world by 1860
•U.S. produced 7/8’s of world’s
cotton supply
•Peculiar Institution, to own
another human being is immoral.
•Cotton is King/King Cotton
•South was not willing to change
•Always felt isolated and
threatened from the rest of the
U.S.
Picture/Cotton Kingdom
2 Systems of Slave Labor
• Task System
- Rice
• Gang System
- Cotton, Tobacco, Sugar
Life of Slaves
Were given food & clothing
Lived in cabins
High death rate
Financial incentive to protect slaves
(importation banned)
• Used hired labor for dangerous tasks
•
•
•
•
Slaves
posing in
front of their
cabin on a
Southern
plantation.
Slave Accoutrements
Slave Master
Brands
Slave muzzle
Slave Accoutrements
Slave leg irons
Slave shoes
Slave tag, SC
Slaves in Cities
• Hired out as laborers or worked in textile
mills
• Slavery in cities declined as cities grew
Slave Trade
• Markets: New Orleans, Mobile, Galveston,
& Natchez
• $500 – 1700 for a good field hand
• Illegal smuggling continued until 1850s
Slave Resistance
• Dominant response: adaptation &
resistance
• Running away (The Underground
Railroad)
• refusal to work hard, acts of sabotage,
stealing
The Map/Underground
Underground Railroad
RRexisted as
early as 1786. It was started by the
Quakers and spread through most of the
North by 1830.
One estimate places the number of
African Americans who escaped through
the Underground Railroad between
1830 and 1860 at 50,000.
•Underground Railroad provided
food, shelter, and hiding places to
runaway slaves as they escaped to Canada
•Violated the Fugitive Slave Law
Map/Underground RR
Slave Revolts
• 1800: Gabriel Prosser
- Richmond, VA
- plan to seize arsenal thwarted
• 1822: Denmark Vesey
- Charleston, SC
- planned uprising discovered
Nat Turner (1831)
• Southampton County, VA
• Slave preacher tried to begin a slave
uprising
• Armed revolt; killed 60 whites
• Lasted 2 days
• 3,000+ of state militia were sent to put
down the rebellion
• Over 100 blacks were executed; Turner
was captured 6 weeks later
Arrest of Nat Turner
Nat Turner Rebellion
Slave Revolts/Turner
Tree Nat Turner
was hung on
Slave Culture
• Language & music important
• Way of coping with enslavement
• Religion – developed own version of
Christianity
- more emotional
- emphasized dream of freedom &
deliverance