Chapter 16

The South and the Slavery Controversy 1793-1860

“Cotton is King!”

• Cotton Kingdom – Gulf states= quick profits – Northern states tied to cotton production – ½ of American exports in 1840 – Great Britain

Returning from the Cotton Fields in South Carolina

African American slaves planted and picked virtually all the cotton that formed the foundation of the nineteenth century southern economy. The white South ferociously defended its “peculiar institution” of slavery, which ended at last only in the fires of the Civil War.

Harvesting Cotton

This Currier & Ives print shows slaves of both sexes harvesting cotton, which was then “ginned,” baled, carted to the riverbank, and taken by paddle wheeler downriver to New Orleans for shipment to New Eng land or overseas.

The Planter Class

• South= oligarchy • 1850: 1,733 families owned over 100 slaves • Class division in South – Feudal idealism or “sham society?” • Gender division  no desire for abolition

Slaveowning Families, 1850

More than half of all slaveholding families owned fewer than four slaves. In contrast, 2 percent of slaveowners owned more than fifty slaves each. A tiny slaveholding elite held a majority of slave property in the South. The great majority of white southerners owned no slaves at all.

Southern Cotton Production and Distribution of Slaves, 1820

Southern Cotton Production and Distribution of Slaves, 1860

Southern Makeup

• Land butchery • Small farmers pushed out  economy one crop • Slave speculation= risky, could die/run away • No manufacturing • No immigration  South= WHITE

The Cruelty of Slavery

Slaveowners used devices like this collar with bells to discipline and patrol their slaves. This female slave shown toiling in New Orleans has such a collar riveted around her neck, designed to prevent her from hiding from her master or escaping

Slave Nurse and Young White Master

The Whites

• Small Southern minority= large slaveholders – ¼ of South= slave owners – Smaller slave owners= worked along side • ¾ of whites owned no slaves  “snobocracy” – “Poor white trash” – Still fought to preserve slavery  why?

– Isolated mountain whites in Appalachians – “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”

Free Blacks

• 1860: 250,000 free blacks in South – Revolutionary War idealism, mulattoes, bought freedom – Practically no rights, served as a reminder of emancipation= hated • 1860: 250,000 free blacks in North – No rights, competition, racism

Slavery’s Profits

• 4 million slaves by 1860 – Importation outlawed 1808, still smuggled – Natural reproduction • Slaves= focus of wealth  dangerous work use Irish for • Deep South • Psychological effects- Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Life in Bondage

• Life in slavery varied • Minimal legal protection- couldn’t testify • Lack of a wage incentive • Illegal to read or write • “Black Belt” of the Deep South – Cultural and family ties – Combined Christian and African traditions

Rebellion

• Rebellion in small ways on a day to day basis • Few armed rebellions – Gabriel in 1800 Virginia – Denmark Vesey in 1822 Charleston, SC – Nat Turner in 1831 Virginia • Created white fear

Early Abolitionism

• Abolition after Revolution • The American Colonization Society – Republic of Liberia • 1830’s: reform movements, 2 nd Great Awakening – Theodore Dwight Weld and the Lane Rebels

“Am I Not a Man and a Brother? Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?”

Radical Abolitionism

• William Lloyd Garrison • The American Antislavery Society 1833 – Wendell Phillips (white- no sugar or cotton clothes), David Walker (black- militant, end to white supremacy), Sojourner Truth (black women’s rights too), Martin Delaney (black recolonization) • Frederick Douglass- runaway slave, orator • Abolitionist political parties

William Lloyd Garrison (1805– 1879)

The most conspicuous and most vilified of the abolitionists, Garrison was a nonresistant pacifist and a poor organizer. He favored northern secession from the South and antagonized both sections with his intemperate language.

Sojourner Truth

Also known simply as “Isabella,” she held audiences spellbound with her deep, resonant voice and the religious passion with which she condemned the sin of slavery. This photo was taken about 1870.

Frederick Douglass (1817?–1895)

Born a slave in Maryland, Douglass escaped to the North and became the most prominent of the black abolitionists. Gifted as an orator, writer, and editor, he continued to battle for the civil rights of his people after emancipation. Near the end of a distinguished career, he served as U.S. minister to Haiti.

In Defense of Slavery

This pair of illustrations contrasts the supposedly benevolent slave regime of the South with the harshness of working life in England, where starvation wages and unemployment blighted workers’ lives. Apologists for slavery frequently invoked this comparison between allegedly paternalistic slavemasters and the uncaring capitalists who captained the Industrial Revolution.

Southern Reaction

• Southern antislavery movements stopped 1830’s • White apologists and proslavery movement began to defend “peculiar institution” – Good of slavery contrasted to Northern “wage slaves” • Gag Resolution 1836

Northern Reaction

• Garrison seen as a radical • Bargain made in Constitution • North tied to South economically • Mobs attacked abolitionists • Growing numbers did see slavery as an evil – Free Soilers