The South and Slavery

AP CHAPTER 10

COTTON AND EXPANSION IN THE OLD SOUTHWEST

• The South was the ideal place to grow cotton

• Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin made growing cotton very profitable

• After the War of 1812 Alabama and Mississippi became ideal places for growing cotton

• Industrial Rev. made spinning and weaving of cotton easier and the demand for cotton grew

SLAVE SOCIETY IN A CHANGING WORLD

• 1808 importation of slaves became illegal

• Demand for cotton led to a higher demand for slave labor in the South

• King Cotton was supreme in the south and southerners relied on the slave labor

• South lagged behind the north in industrialization so cotton was their main source or revenue

• Slave states were losing their political dominance b/c their population was not keeping up with the North's

• More than half of the slave owners owned more than 5 slaves but 75% of the slaves lived in groups of ten or more

• Internal Slave Trade- owners sold the slaves to the people in the Old Southwest

• Owners sold slaves and separated families only for profits

• Most slaves were sold in their teens and separated from their families

• Slaves were inspected at auctions and buyers seldom cared about keeping families together

• 75% of all slaves were field workers and worked from “can see to can’t see”

• When they were to old to work they took on other tasks like taking care of the children

• House Servants- provided all of the services necessary to maintain the home but were the 1st to flee

• Some slaves were artisans, weavers, seamstress, carpenters and blacksmiths

• Slaves were property who were bought, sold, worked but never abused (according to the owner)

• Slave population grew from a high fertility rate

• Slaves were often in poor health and average life expectancy in 1850 was 30-33

• Most southern states it was against the law to teach the slaves how to read and marriage was illegal

• Owners encouraged marriage (to keep them calm) and kids (to sell them off)

• 1 in 5 marriages ended and 1 in 3 kids were sold off

AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGION

• African Americans were deeply religious and it was a form of unity among them and a method of expressing their feelings

• 2nd Great Awakening- religious revival among slaves and southerners in the 1790s

• Religion gave slaves a method of survival

REVOLT, RESISTANCE AND FREEDOM

• Harriet Tubman freed 60-70 slaves along the Underground Railroad

• Nat Turner Revolt- preacher and a slave led a revolt in 1831 killing 55 whites

• Turner was later captured and executed

• Gabriel’s Rebellion- failed revolt in Virginia

HARRIET TUBMAN

• Black Codes were passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of free black people

• Blacks were often falsely accused of crimes

• Many poor southern whites were tenant farmers

• Yeoman- small independent farmers of the South

• Communities would often come together to do large tasks

SMALL SLAVE OWNERS

• Largest group of slave owners were small yeoman farmers

• Slave owning elite made up 2.5% of the population and had political control

• Treatment of slaves varied from owner to owner

• Beatings, rape, whippings were all common

DEFENSE OF SLAVERY

• Defenders of slavery felt it was a Constitutional right

• Denmark Vesey’s Conspiracy- attempt to seize Charleston and escape to Haiti but was betrayed by fellow slaves

• South began to close ranks in defense of slavery after Nat Turner’s Revolt

• Northerner William Lloyd Garrison wrote the Liberator which became the leading antislavery newspaper

• Many southerners disliked anyone that attacked slavery

• Few owned slaves in the South but it was a way of life for them

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

CONCLUSION

• Cotton Gin and the rise in demand for cotton led to the continuation of slavery in the South

• Slavery was a way of life in the South

• African Americans used religion as a source of unity and an escape from the brutality of daily life