Chapter 11 Study Guide

Cotton, Slavery, and the South

I. The Cotton Economy:

Rise of King Cotton:
 Many farmers in old tobacco regions in VA, MD, NC were shifting to other
crops like wheat whole the center or tobacco was in Piedmont
 SC, GA, and parts of Fl relied on cultivation of rice
 Growth of textile industry created a new enormous demand for cotton and
ambitious men and women opened to planter settlement after the relocation
of tribes to est. cotton growing regions
 First into Alabama and Mississippi then into LA, TX, AK, cotton became the
linchpin of the southern economy
 Lower or deep south was known as the cotton kingdom
-Slaves moved from upper south to the cotton states either accompanying
masters who were migrating to the Southwest or sold to planters already there
-Sale of slaves became an important economic activity in the upper South and
helped the troubled planters of that region compensate for the declining value of
their crops
Southern Trade and Industry:
 The business classes like the manufactures were not important and there
was growing activity in flour milling and in textile and iron manufacturing in
upper South
 Tredegar Iron Works: compared with iron mills in NE
 “Factors” were merchants that tended to work to find buyers for cotton and
other crops and where they purchased goods for the planters they served
 Inadequate transportation: no canals, railroads, or roads and most of the
South was unconnected to the national railroad system; principal means was
water
 James Bow advocated southern commercial and agricultural expansion and
wanted econ. Indep. From the north
Sources of Southern Difference:
 Northeast: people turned to manufacturing and in the South, agricultural
economy was booming
 White southerners were based on traditional values of leisure and elegance
and were not concerned with rapid growth and development
White Society in the South:
 Only a small minority of southern whites owned slaves; only a small
proportion owned them in substantial numbers
 The Planter Class: the whites who owned numerous slaves had power and
influence and were at the apex of society, determining the polit., economic,
and even social life of their region
 The wealthiest planters maintained homes in towns or cities and spent
months of the year engaging in social life
  Some of the great aristocrats were indeed people whose families had
occupied positions of wealth and power for generations
 They were all more determined to defend their positions and wealthy
southern whites sustained their image of themselves as aristocrats in many
ways
 Those who did not become planters often went toward military
“Honor”:
 Placed enormous stock in conventional forms of courtesy and respect in their
dealings with one another and tied to the importance of the white males of
dignity and authority
 When Brooks beat Sumner: southerners saw this as acting with honor and
was a hero but in the north, he was a savage
 Cult of Honor: avenging insults to white southern women was perhaps the
most important obligation of a white southern “gentlemen”
The Southern Lady:
 Centered in the home and less frequently to find income employment
 Southern white men gave importance to the defense of women and white
men were even more dominant and white men even more subordinate in
southern culture than in the North
 Fitzhugh stated that women must be protected so they must obey
 No access to the public world bc they lived in isolated farms and some
women became the “plantation mistress” which that they were not an active
part of the economy or the society
 Less access to education than their northern counterparts; academies taught
women how to be wives
 Other burdens: low birth rate and high infant mortality rate; infidelity of
husbands
The Plain Folk:
 Typical white southerner that owned a few slaves with whom they worked
and lived far more closely than did the larger planters
 The number of nonslaveholding landowners increased much faster than
slaveholding landowners
 No education to provide poor whites with opportunities
-Universities only benefited the upper class
-Hill people: lived in the App. Ranges in the hill country and they were the
most isolated from the mainstream of the region’s life; practiced subsistence
agriculture and owned no slaves; animosity towards planter aristocracy
-Mountain region was the only part of the south to defy the trend toward
sectional conformity and to resist the movement toward secession when it
developed
 Paternalism: male-dominated family structure
 White southerners who didn’t share in the plantation economy: members of
degraded class known as crackers or sand hillers
-Formed an underclass but there was no real opposition to the plantation
system or slavery
  Perception of race: even how poor and miserable they were, they still looked
down upon the black population and had a bond with fellow whites
II. Slavery: The Peculiar Institution:
 The South was the only place in the Western World except Brazil, Cuba, and
P. Rico where slavery still existed
 Slave codes: forbade to hold property, leave master’s premise w/o
permission, to be our after dark, congregate w/ other slaves except at church,
carry firearms, strike a white person
-Some states prohibited them to read or write and denied them to testify in
court against white people; if an owner killed a slave the act was not a crime
-Some slaves lived in harsh conditions while others enjoyed some flexibility
and a degree of autonomy
 On small farms, blacks and whites developed form of intimacy unknown on
large plantations; could be cruel or affectionate
 Head drivers: trusted and responsible slaves often assisted by several sub
drivers acted under the overseer as foremen
-Task: slave could get one task then they were free for rest of the day or the
gang system where slaves were simply divided into groups and compelled to work
for as many hours as the overseer considered a workday
Life under slavery:
 Cheap food, clothing, shelter (slave quarters) in plantations
 Women: could be “healers” and midwives; black women were usually single
parents and had special authority
 1840: one AA to every 5 whites
 Conditions of American slaves were less severe than those in the Caribbean
and S. America crops
 House slaves: lived close to master and had easier physical life; resented
their isolation from their slaves and lack of privacy that came with living in
close proximity
-Female house slaves were vulnerable to sexual abuse and plantation
mistresses punished the slaves bc they could not punish their husbands
Slavery in the Cities:
 Master could not supervise his slaves closely and slaves gained opportunities
to mingle with free blacks and whites
 Slaves on contract worked in mining and lumbering and others worked on
docks and construction sites; poor whites wanted to work on farms
 Even while slavery in the cities was declining, the forced segregation of
urban blacks from white society increased
Free African Americans:
 More than half lived in VA & MD
 Keckley was a slave woman who bought freedom for herself and her son with
proceeds from sewing
 Some slaves were set free by a master who had moral qualms about slavery
or by a master’s will after his death
 400 slaves that belonged to Randolph was freed in 1833
  The rise of abolitionist agitation in the North and the fear that it would
inspire slaves to rebel also persuaded southern whites to tighten their
system
 In New Orleans, Natchez, & Charleston free black communities flourished
that were not affected by whites and with some stability
-Most free blacks lived in poverty and under worse conditions than those of
AA’s in the North
The Slave Trade:
 Auctioned off slaves like livestock and inspecting them like animals;
attractive women might bring much more than usual $500-$1500
 Domestic slave trade separated children from parents and parents from each
other
 Foreign slave trade: convention that year voted to repeal that all laws against
slave imports but it never passed; only the delegates from the states of the
upper south which profited from domestic trade opposed the foreign
competition
 1839: 53 slaves took charge of the Amistad in Cuba and their goal was to sail
back to their homelands in Africa; Van Buren thought they would return to
Cuba but Q. Adams went before S. Court to set them free; argued that foreign
slave trade was illegal and thus they could not be returned to slavery
-Court accepted and slaves were retuned to Africa
 Two years later, another group of slaves took control of a ship but an
American vessel to N. Orleans steered it to the British Bahamas where
slavery was illegal and they were given sanctuary
Slave Resistance:
 Sambo: shuffling, grinning, differential slave who acted out the role that he
recognized the white world expected of him
 Other extreme: slave rebel was the AA who could not bring himself/herself to
either accept or accommodate but remained forever rebellious
 1800: Prosser gathered 1000 slave rebels outside Richmond but 2 Africans
gave the plot away and the militia put down the uprising before it began;
Prosser and 35 others were executed
 1822: Charleston free black Denmark Vesey and his 9000 followers planned
to revolt but word leaked out and retribution followed
 1831: Turner led a band of AA’s who armed themselves with guns and axes,
killed 60 white men, women, and children before being overpowered by state
and federal troops; more than 100 blacks were executed
-Was the only large-scale slave insurrection in the 19th century South
 Less drastic forms:
-White slave patrols would stop wandering blacks on sight throughout the
south to see travel permits; blacks continued to runaway and were captive if caught
-Stole from masters, losing or breaking tools, performing tasks improperly
III. Culture of Slavery:
 Language and Music: pidgin: common language of the AA’s
 Field workers used songs to get through the day and in religious services
  Religion: almost all were Christian and masters expected their slaves to
worship under white ministers and had same religion as owners usually
Baptist or Methodist
 Slave prayer meetings involved fervent chanting, spontaneous exclamations
from the congregation, and conversion experiences; dreamt of freedom
-Slaves were segregated in churches
The Slave Family:
 Lack of legal marriage; black women began to raise children at age 14 or 15
and was customary for couples to marry in a ceremony after conceiving but
could live together before marriage
 Husbands and wives could visit each other with permission from their
masters but often had to be secret at night
 All black families were broken apart by the slave trade and kinship networks
with aunts and uncles helped compensate for the breakup of nuclear families
 One of the most frequent causes of flight from the plantation was of a slave’s
desire to find a husband, wife, or child who had been sent elsewhere
 Black women usually bore the children of whites
 Slaves derived security and protection from their masters so they found it
difficult to maintain hostile attitude toward owners; paternalism was
instrument of white control and whites helped reduce resistance that served
only the interests of the ruling race