Southern Culture and Slavery

1
Southern Culture and Slavery

• Chapter 16

2
Objective 1

• Explain the economic strengths and weaknesses of
  the Cotton Kingdom.

3
Objective 2

• Describe the southern social hierarchy.

4
Objective 3

• Describe the nature of African American life,
  both free and slave, before the Civil War.

5
Objective 4

• Describe the abolitionist movement and the
  southern reaction to the abolitionist movement
  during the Antebellum Period.

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Early Emancipation in the North
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Missouri Compromise, 1820
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Characteristics of the Antebellum South

1. Primarily agrarian.
2. Economic power shifted from the upper South to
   the lower South.
3. Cotton Is King! 1860? 5 mil. bales a yr.
   (2/3 of total US exports).
4. Very slow development of industrialization
   (making about 15 of nations manufactured goods
   by 1850).
5. Rudimentary financial system.
6. Inadequate transportation system.

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Cotton Gin

• Invented by Eli Whitney, ties Southern economy to
  King Cotton
• Plantation system
• Only plantations could afford gins, so gap
  between rich and poor was wide

10
Southern Agriculture
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Changes in Cotton Production
1820
1860
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Southern Cotton

• Half of our countrys exports by 1840
• Largest producer of cotton in the world
• U.S. produced over half of the worlds cotton
• 75 of Englands cotton came from U.S. South
• Benefit to Northern textile mills
• Tied Southern economy to cotton.
• Very little industry

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Value of Cotton Exports As of All US Exports
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Southern Economy Chained to Cotton

• Quick profits
• Lots of bountiful land
• Very reliant on slavery
• Number of slaves in 1820 1.5 million
• Number of slaves in 1860 4 million
• 75 in agriculture (55 cotton)
• Domestic servants, mining, industry

15
The Cotton System

• Relied on international markets
• Heavy investment in slaves
• Dangerous to depend on one-crop economy
• Lots of land speculation
• Lots of debt

16
Southern Society (1850)
Slavocracyplantation owners
6,000,000
The Plain Folkwhite yeoman farmers
Black Freemen
250,000
Hillbillies
Black Slaves3,200,000
Total US Population ? 23,000,0009,250,000 in
the South 40
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Southern Hierarchy

• 1850 1700 families owned 100 or more slaves
• Controlled political and social leadership
• Rich often sent kids to private school

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Slave-Owning Families (1850)
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Yeoman Farmer

• 70 of farmers owned less than 100 acres
• 2/3 of hog raising in South
• 75 of southern whites owned no slaves and lived
  on family farms
• Resembled northern farmers
• Worked the land along side slaves
• Many forced to sell land to plantations and move
  West or North

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A Group Below Yeoman Farmers

• Sometimes called Hillbillies, Dirt Eaters,
  Poor White Trash
• Lived in marshes, barrens of South OR the
  Appalachian Mts (Mountain People).
• Grew vegetables, fished, hunted, hired themselves
  as farm hands
• Poor diet, bad living conditions
• Higher rate of disease
• School attendance rates were lower
• Perception of being lazy

21
Whites Without Slaves

• Protected system
• Some wanted to own slaves
• Protect racial superiority
• Some who lived in Appalachian Mountains were
  detached from slavery and cotton plantations
• Some of these would be abolitionists
• Some just detested slavery and the plantation
  system

22
Free Blacks

• 250,000 in South
• Many were mulatto
• Purchased freedom
• Racism limited job opportunities
• Denied civil rights
• 250,000 in North
• Mulatto, born into freedom, ran away
• Purchased freedom or ran away
• Racism limited job opportunities
• Denied civil rights

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Plantation Slavery

• 4 million slaves in 1860
• Southerners invested nearly 2 billion into
  slavery by 1860
• Average slave was worth 2,000 in 1860
• South had less capital than North to invest in
  industry
• Slaves
• Work from dusk til dawn
• No civil or political rights
• Punishment for not working hard

24
Southern Population
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Slave Families

• Most had 2-parent households in Deep South
• More likely to form African-American culture on
  plantations
• Smaller farms meant more contact with whites,
  separation from families

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A Slave Family
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Slaves posing in front of their cabin on a
Southern plantation.
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The Culture of Slavery

1. Black Christianity Baptists or Methodists
   more emotional worship services. negro
   spirituals.
2. Pidgin or Gullah languages.
3. Nuclear family with extended kin links,where
   possible.
4. Importance of music in their lives. esp.
   spirituals.

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Early Abolition

• By 1820 120 abolitionist groups in the U.S.
• Most advocated a slow, moderate ending of slavery
  (Gradualists)
• Payment to slaveholders
• Did not advocate equality for blacks

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Abolitionist Movement

• 1817 ? American Colonization Society
  created (gradual, voluntary
  emancipation.

Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John Marshall, James
Monroe
British Colonization Society symbol
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Abolitionist Movement

• Create a free slave state in Liberia,
  WestAfrica.
• Capital was Monrovia
• No real anti-slavery sentiment in the North in
  the 1820s 1830s.
• Second Great Awakening inspired many to believ
  slavery was a sin
• Great Britain freed slaves in W. Indies in 1833
  influenced many in U.S.

Gradualists
Immediatists
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William Lloyd Garrison (1801-1879)

• Slavery undermined republican values.
• Slaves were Americans, not Africans
• Deserve equal rights
• Immediate emancipation with NO compensation.
• Slavery was a moral, notan economic issue.

R2-4
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The Liberator
Premiere issue ? January 1, 1831
R2-5
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The Tree of SlaveryLoaded with the Sum of All
Villanies!
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Black Abolitionists
David Walker(1785-1830)
1829 ? Appeal to the Coloured Citizens
of the World

• Fight for freedom rather than wait to be set
  free by whites.
• Outlawed in most states.

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Anti-Slave Pamphlet
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Southern Pro-SlaveryPropaganda
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Slave Rebellions in the Antebellum South
Nat Turner, 1831
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Nat Turners Revolt (1831)

• Bloodiest slave rebellion in American History
• Turner and 60 slaves attack plantations of
  Virginia
• 55 whites killed
• Turners men were captured or lynched
• Anti-slavery propaganda and abolitionists blamed

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Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
1845 ? The Narrative of the Life Of
Frederick Douglass 1847 ? The North Star
R2-12
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Slave Resistance

• Refusal to work hard.
• Isolated acts of sabotage.
• Escape via the Underground Railroad.

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Harriet Tubman(1820-1913)

• Helped over 300 slaves to freedom.
• 40,000 bounty on her head.
• Served as a Union spy during the Civil War.

Moses
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The Underground Railroad
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Leading Escaping Slaves Along the Underground
Railroad
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Quilt Patterns as Secret Messages
The Monkey Wrench pattern, on the left, alerted
escapees to gather up tools and prepare to flee
the Drunkard Path design, on the right, warned
escapees not to follow a straight route.
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Runaway Slave Ads
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Abolitionist Impact on North

• Unpopular at first
• North dependent on South
• South owed Northern creditors 300 million
• Propaganda began to change some Northern
  attitudes
• Many did not want slavery expanded into
  territories
• Republican party formed in 1850s
• Free-Soilers growing in strength and numbers

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Opposition to Abolitionists Grows

• Many felt ending slavery would hurt Southern
  economy and society
• Abolitionist propaganda made illegal
• Gag Rule in House (1836)
• Attacks on Abolitionists
• Considered outside agitators
• Some Northerners did not want job and housing
  competition
• Mainly working class whites