Southern Culture and Slavery
Chapter 16
Early Emancipation in the North
Missouri Compromise, 1820
1
Characteristics of the
Antebellum South
1.  Primarily agrarian.
2.  Economic power shifted from the
upper South to the lower South.
3.  Cotton Is King!
* 1860à 5 mil. bales a yr.
(2/3 of total US exports).
4.  Very slow development of industrialization
(making about 15% of nation s manufactured
goods by 1850).
5.  Rudimentary financial system.
6.  Inadequate transportation system.
Cotton Gin
•  Invented by Eli
Whitney, ties
Southern economy
to King Cotton
•  Plantation system
•  Only plantations
could afford gins, so
gap between rich
and poor was wide
Southern Agriculture
2
Changes in Cotton Production
1820
1860
Southern Cotton
•  Half of our country s exports by 1840
•  Largest producer of cotton in the world
–  U.S. produced over half of the world s cotton
•  75% of England s cotton came from U.S.
South
•  Benefit to Northern textile mills
•  Tied Southern economy to cotton.
•  Very little industry
Value of Cotton Exports
As % of All US Exports
3
Southern Economy Chained
to Cotton
•  Quick profits
•  Lots of bountiful land
•  Very reliant on slavery
–  Number of slaves in 1820: 1.5 million
–  Number of slaves in 1860: 4 million
–  75% in agriculture (55% cotton)
–  Domestic servants, mining, industry
The Cotton System
•  Relied on international markets
•  Heavy investment in slaves
•  Dangerous to depend on one-crop
economy
–  Lots of land speculation
–  Lots of debt
Southern Society (1850)
6,000,000
Slavocracy
[plantation owners]
The Plain Folk
[white yeoman farmers]
Hillbillies
Black Freemen
250,000
Black Slaves
3,200,000
Total US Population à 23,000,000
[9,250,000 in the South = 40%]
4
Southern Hierarchy
•  1850: 1700 families
owned 100 or more
slaves
•  Controlled political
and social
leadership
•  Rich often sent kids
to private school
Slave-Owning Families
(1850)
Yeoman Farmer
•  70% of farmers owned less than 100 acres
•  2/3 of hog raising in South
•  75% of southern whites owned no slaves and
lived on family farms
•  Resembled northern farmers
•  Worked the land along side slaves
•  Many forced to sell land to plantations and
move West or North
5
A Group Below Yeoman
Farmers
•  Sometimes called Hillbillies , Dirt Eaters ,
Poor White Trash
•  Lived in marshes, barrens of South OR the
Appalachian Mts ( Mountain People ).
•  Grew vegetables, fished, hunted, hired
themselves as farm hands
•  Poor diet, bad living conditions
•  Higher rate of disease
•  School attendance rates were lower
•  Perception of being lazy
Whites Without Slaves
• 
• 
• 
• 
Protected system
Some wanted to own slaves
Protect racial superiority
Some who lived in Appalachian Mountains
were detached from slavery and cotton
plantations
–  Some of these would be abolitionists
–  Some just detested slavery and the plantation
system
Free Blacks
•  250,000 in South
–  Many were mulatto
–  Purchased freedom
–  Racism limited job opportunities
–  Denied civil rights
•  250,000 in North
–  Mulatto, born into freedom, ran away
–  Purchased freedom or ran away
–  Racism limited job opportunities
–  Denied civil rights
6
Plantation Slavery
•  4 million slaves in 1860
•  Southerners invested nearly
$2 billion into slavery by
1860
–  Average slave was worth
$2,000 in 1860
–  South had less capital than
North to invest in industry
•  Slaves
–  Work from dusk til dawn
–  No civil or political rights
–  Punishment for not
working hard
Southern Population
Slave Families
•  Most had 2-parent households in Deep
South
•  More likely to form African-American
culture on plantations
•  Smaller farms meant more contact with
whites, separation from families
7
Early Abolition
•  By 1820: 120 abolitionist groups in the
U.S.
•  Most advocated a slow, moderate
ending of slavery ( Gradualists )
•  Payment to slaveholders
•  Did not advocate equality for blacks
Abolitionist Movement
e  1817 à American Colonization Society
created (gradual, voluntary
emancipation.
Henry Clay,
Daniel Webster,
John Marshall,
James Monroe
British Colonization Society symbol
Abolitionist Movement
e  Create a free slave state in Liberia, West
Africa.
e Capital was Monrovia
e  No real anti-slavery sentiment in the North
in the 1820s & 1830s.
e Second Great Awakening inspired many to
believe slavery was a sin
e Great Britain freed slaves in W. Indies in
1833: influenced many in U.S.
Gradualists
Immediatists
8
William Lloyd Garrison
(1801-1879)
e  Slavery undermined
republican values.
e  Slaves were Americans,
not Africans
e  Deserve equal rights
e  Immediate emancipation
with NO compensation.
e  Slavery was a moral, not
an economic issue.
R2-4
The Liberator
Premiere issue à January 1, 1831
R2-5
Black Abolitionists
David Walker
(1785-1830)
1829 à Appeal to the Coloured
Citizens of the World
• Fight for freedom rather than
wait to be set free by whites.
• Outlawed in most states.
9
Anti-Slave Pamphlet
Southern Pro-Slavery
Propaganda
Slave Rebellions in the Antebellum
South:
Nat Turner, 1831
10
Nat Turner s Revolt (1831)
•  Bloodiest slave rebellion in American
History
•  Turner and 60 slaves attack plantations
of Virginia
•  55 whites killed
•  Turner s men were captured or lynched
•  Anti-slavery propaganda and
abolitionists blamed
Frederick Douglass
(1817-1895)
1845 à The Narrative of the Life
Of Frederick Douglass
1847 à The North Star
R2-12
Slave Resistance
•  Refusal to work hard.
•  Isolated acts of sabotage.
•  Escape via the Underground Railroad.
11
Harriet Tubman
(1820-1913)
e  Helped over 300 slaves
to freedom.
e  $40,000 bounty on her
head.
e  Served as a Union spy
during the Civil War.
Moses
The Underground Railroad
Leading Escaping Slaves
Along the Underground
Railroad
12
Runaway Slave Ads
Abolitionist Impact on North
•  Unpopular at first
–  North dependent on South
–  South owed Northern creditors $300 million
•  Propaganda began to change some Northern
attitudes
•  Many did not want slavery expanded into
territories
•  Republican party formed in 1850s
•  Free-Soilers growing in strength and
numbers
Opposition to Abolitionists
Grows
•  Many felt ending slavery would hurt Southern
economy and society
•  Abolitionist propaganda made illegal
•  Gag Rule in House (1836)
•  Attacks on Abolitionists
–  Considered outside agitators
•  Some Northerners did not want job and
housing competition
–  Mainly working class whites
13