Chapter 16: The South and the Slavery Controversy 1793-1860

Intro:

• Introduction of Eli Whitney's cotton gin 1793 created a deman for labor -> reinvigoratesd slavery in South

"Cotton is King!":

• more slaves -> more cotton
• Cotton also benefitted North -> prosperity of North and South rested on Souther slaves
• Britain depended on trade of American cotton - gave America power, and was monarch of the South

The Planter "Aristocracy":

• South was an oligarchy, influence by planter aristocracy
• John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis - rich Southerners w/ obligation to serve public
• Sir Walter Scott's manor/castle fiction inspired an idealized Southern feudal society
• Women commanded household slaves

Slaves of the Slave System:

• Excessive cultivation - land butchery - many went West and Northwest -> Big got bigger and small got smaller
• Slaves could be expensive (to feed and manage)
• Cotton: one-crop economy
• South didn't attract immgrants - more wealth for North

The White Majority:

• Only about 1/4 of whites in the South owned slaves
• Most small slave-owners labored w/ their slaves
• Non-slave-owning whites -subsistence farmers "hillbillies," "crackers" - defend slavery! Why? They hoped to one day own a slave and move up the social ladder. they liked the "raical superiority" because it was the only thing they had.
• Mountain whites - Unionists!

Free Blacks: Slaves Without Master:

• About 250,000 free blacks in South by 1860
• Kind of a "3rd race" - prohibited from certain occupations - resented by slavery-lovers
• Unpopular in North too - most states denied right to vote, barred from public schools
• South liked black individuals, but hated the race. North "liked" the race, but disliked the individuals.

Plantation Slavery:

• Congress outlawed slave import in 1808, but there was much illegal smuggling (despite death penalty)
• $1800/slave
• Wanted slave women to have lots of babies. Many mulatto children - most enslaned
• Slave auctions - yuck!

Life Under the Lash:

• Slavery everywhere meant hard work, oppression, no civil or political rights. Floggings common.
• By 1860, most slaves concentrated in "black belt" S. Carolina -> Georgia, Alabama, Miss, Louisiana
• Majority of blacks lived on large plantations - family life was stable -> slave culture developed.
• Religion was amixture of Christian and African elements

The Burdens of Bondage:

• No rights -no dignity - no "American Dream"
• Slaves sometimes worked minimally - "lazy" - pilfered stuff from masters
• Ill-fated rebellions

Early Abolitionism:

• The American Colonization Society wanted to send blacks back to Africa - Liberia founded for this purpose.
• Britain freed slaves of West Indies
• Theodore Dwight Weld - spoke against slavery - travelled through Old NW preaching, wrote pamphlet => influenced Harriet Beechar Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin

Radical Abolitionsim:

• William Lloyd Garrison - antislavery newspaper The Liberator - 9 parts advocate, 1 part awesome.
• => Founded American Anti-Slavery Society
• Black abolitionsists: David Walker, Sojourner Truth, Martin Delaney
• Frederick Douglass - escaped slave - wrote an autobiography
• These abolitionist movements influenced the Liberty Party in 1840, Free Soil Party in 1848, and Republican Party in 1850

The South Lashes Back:

• Souther slave-owners slept w/guns in case of rebellion
• Pro-slavers tried to make slavery soundl ike a good thing

The Abolitionst Impact in the North:

• Northerners upset by antislavery movements -> N.E. made lots of $ from South Cotton slavery
• Union bound together w/ cotton threads