Transcript Slavery and the Old South

Slavery and the Old South
1800 -1860
Study Guide Identifications
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Mono-cropping
Cotton Belt
Internal Slave system
Demography of Slavery
Slave Codes
Conditions of slavery
Resistance and Rebellion
Study Guide Questions
• How did the increasing demand for cotton in the
lower south impact the institution of slavery?
• What factors led to a decline of slavery after 1800 in
the economy of the upper south?
• What were the conditions that enslaved peoples
Experience and how did they respond?
• How did advocates of black enslavement justify such
an institution?
Charleston Slave Auction
The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave
by Henry Byam Martin, 1833.
Plantation labor
• Plantations of the cotton belt
– most intensely commercialized
farms in the world
– Huge demand in Europe and
United States
– Lower south led the nation in per
capita income
The Lower South
• After 1790 Cotton
Boomed
• Cotton Belt by 1850
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South Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Alabama
Mississippi
Texas
Mono-cropping
• Cotton Plantations
– huge profits in good years but in bad years sent
planter into debt and forced them to sell slaves
and land.
– organized their labor in ways to maximize
production and reinforced the dominance of the
white men who owned the farms.
Slave Trade
• By 1860 nearly 4 million slaves lived in the south
– 250,000 had been smuggled in after the ban on the
African slave trade in 1808
Slave trade 1830-1850
Internal Slavery
• ½ of all slave sales separated families
• Slave children born in the upper south: 1:3
chance of being sold
• By 1850 almost all southern slaves were native
born – African Americans
Demography of Slavery
White Minority
1% Big Planters –
50+slaves
3% 20-49 Slaves
Controlled wealth &
politics
20% small slave
holders
White Majority
• 75% White Majority
• 1860 ¾ owned no slaves, worked land with
family labor
– 1 in 5 owned no land or slaves and squatted on
least desirable lands
– Grew corn
– Grazed livestock
• Cities: artisans & day laborers
Free Black Society
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3% if all free families
6% of Southern Blacks free
80% of free blacks in upper south
70% of blacks mulattoes
• Tradition of racially mixed unions under French &
Spanish Rule established free elite
– Creole societies in Charleston, Mobile and New Orleans
– Greater white patronage, monopolized best jobs, Octoroon
Balls
Status of Enslaved Peoples
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Slave codes
– laws defining the status of slaves and the
rights of the masters, the codes gave slave
owners near-absolute power over their
human property
– Prohibited
• own property
• make contracts
• possess guns or alcohol
• legally marry (except LA)
• leave plantations without the owners
permission
• testify against their master or any other
white persons in a court of law.
• read and write
• It was illegal for a slave to kill a master,
but not for a master to kill a slave.
Torture Mask, 1807
Conditions
Clothes:
They were provided one
set of winter and one set
of summer clothes
Housing:
15x15 cabin for 6 or more
people.
Conditions
• Diet
– Cornmeal, salt pork and vegetables made up a poor
• Diseases from Malnutrition
– Beriberi
– vitamin deficiency disease caused by inadequate bodily stores of vitamin
B1 or thiamine
– Damages the heart and nervous system.
– Pellagra
– Deficiency of niacin and amino acids
– scaly skin sores, diarrhea, inflamed mucous membranes, and mental
confusion and delusions
• Diseases from poor Hygiene
– Dysentery & Cholera
• Contaminated food & water
• diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramp, dehydration, death
• Due to overcrowded and unsanitary conditions
Conditions
• Life expectancy
– Half that of whites. (20-22 years compared to 40+)
• Gang Labor System
– 20 + blacks on a gang with an overseer or driver to
clear, plow or how the land and pick cotton at a
steady pace
– Overseers admitted they relied on whippings to
make them work.
Rural Slavery
• 80-90% of slaves worked on farms
and plantations
– 15-20% of plantation slaves were house
servants or skilled artisans
– Lighter less regimented workloads than
field hands
Urban Slavery
• Artisans
• Semi-skilled laborers
• Domestics
• Declined from 18201860 as slaves
decreased from 22% to
10% of the urban
population
Industrial Slavery
• 5-10% Industrial Slavery
– lumbering and mining
– The Tredegar Iron, Richmond, VA
• after 1847 used slaves to curb strikes by white workers
– Industrial slaves had more independence off the
job and had greater opportunities to earn money
– Competed w/ free whites
Slave Families
• Marriages produced enduring commitments
• Until death or 1/3 broken by re-sale, 2/3 had both
parents
• Supportive moral code
• Fathers hunted & fished to supplement diets, risked
beating and death to protect women from sexual abuse
• Mothers endured burdens of pregnancy, child care,
laundry & cooking in addition to field work
Survival skills
• Taught Survival Skills
• Keep feeling hidden, tell what they want to
hear
• Extensive kinship/support network
–All elders: Aunt & Uncles
–All peers: Sisters& brothers
West African Tradition
• Followed & Blended West African Religious
traditions
• Prohibited marriages between cousins
• named children after grandparents
• Brush Harbor meetings
– Blended natural & spiritual world
Upper South
• Slavery entrenched but less dominant than in
lower south
• 2/3 of all whites in 1860 held 45% of all slaves
• Following War of 1812
– Economic slump
– Depopulation 1820-30s
– Soil depletion – land values fell
– Immigration west ward
Growing Urbanization
• Slavery declining by 1850 in the Upper South
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Delaware
Kentucky
Missouri
Virginia
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Economic recovery
Agricultural diversification
Relied less on slaves
Expanded urban markets
Network of internal improvements facilitated transition to
general farming
Open Resistance
“Sold Down
the River”
or killed
Work slow
down, theft,
tool loss,
arson…
Rebellions Frequent
– 4 Major Rebellions in 19th C
• Gabriel Prosser 1800
– 50 armed slaves, Richmond, Prosser +25 executed
• New Orleans Rivers parishes 1810
– March on city, 60 died, heads of leaders posted on poles along
river
• Denmark Vesey, 1822
– Literate carpenter & preacher, Charleston, target municipal
guard house & arsenal, 35 executed, 37 banished
• Nat Turner, 1831
– South Hampton, Virginia, killed 60 whites, whites killed 30
followers plus 100 more.
Slavery Defense
• Justification of a
“necessary evil”
Slavery Defense
– 1830’s following Nat Turner Rebellion &
abolitionist crusades
• White mobs emerged to stifle open criticism
– “Positive good”& “Disinterested Benevolence”
• Mild, paternalistic, caring, provided Christian
instruction to heathens
• Foundation of white prosperity and democracy
• Blacks not fit for freedom will turn violent & assault
white women
– Moral Justifications
• 1850s politicians, intellectuals, evangelical ministers
argued institution is ordained by GOD
Theater Poster: Uncle Tom’s Cabin