Old South
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1808 – Participation in the international slave trade is outlawed
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1816 – American Colonization Society is founded
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1822 – Denmark Vesey conspiracy is discovered in Charleston, South Carolina
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1831 – Nat Turner leads slave insurrection in Virginia
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– William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of the Liberator
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1833 – American Anti-Slavery Society is founded
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1837 – Abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy is murdered
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1840 – Abolitionists form the Liberty party
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1845 – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas is published
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1851 – Sojourner Truth delivers her famous speech Ain’t I a Women?
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1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published
BIG IDEAS
1. Climate and land – plantation system and slave labor, quality of land vs. land of the West
(overworking)
2. Effects of human decisions and actions – profits trumped morality, racist attitudes, sectional
conflict over extension of slavery
Southern Economy
 Cotton not the only profitable crop in the South
 Border South and Middle South increasingly diversified – indigo (vanished with the loss of British
trade) and tobacco – large areas without slavery in middle, declining in border states by 1860
 Sugar and other crops grown in the Lower South – slaves represented nearly ½ population by
1860, lower South took the lead in the sectional debate
Which South are we actually talking about?
 Despite the belief that slaves were unsuited for factory work, some manufacturing ventures
employed slaves
 Slavery was the unifying factor in all southern enterprises
 South relied on North for exporting and manufactured goods – like a colony of the North
 Planter elites had an aristocratic connection to owning land and slaves and believed slaves
couldn’t work in factories
How diverse was the South’s economy, and what was its unifying feature?
Southern Culture
By watching this clip from Gone with the Wind (1939), what can we infer about the standards of
southern white culture and how it is determined?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSOYTFw0JaA
 Antebellum era became increasingly dependent upon a cotton economy, relying on slavery
 Despite efforts to diversify, wealth and status associated with cotton prompted westward
expansion of the plantation culture
 Evangelical churches tried to defend slavery through the Bible’s sanctions
 Southerners believed it was a positive good for the African Americans
 Although only a quarter of white southerners owned slaves, the planter elite set the standard
for white culture – strict social hierarchy based on race, a preoccupation with masculine honor,
and the glorification of white women’s chastity
How did dependence on agriculture and slavery shape the distinctive culture of the Old South? Why
did southern whites who did not own slaves defend the “peculiar institution”?
Anti-Slavery Movement
 Northern opponents have solutions – deportation to colonies in Africa, gradual emancipation,
immediate abolition
 Southern white feared the efforts of radical abolitionists – fears for their safety and resentment
of interference
 However, many northerners shared the belief in the racial inferiority of African Americans
What led to the anti-slavery movement? How did white southerners respond to it?
Southern Black Culture
 Celia story p. 586
 Enslaved responded in a variety of ways
 Nat Turner (popular of the few successful) – black overseer, organized slaves to kill the family
in their farm house and proceed to the next farmhouse – 55 whites killed, Virginia militia killed
many slaves putting down the rebellion, 17 slaves hanged
 Many ran away, few openly rebelled – Why?
 Some survived relying on their communities, family ties, and Christian faith
 Others could win special considerations that allowed them to develop as an individual and
strengthen their community
 Slave communities were the epitome of melting pots – some elements still survive
 Free blacks were not allowed to vote or testify against whites in court
How did enslaved people respond to their bondage during the antebellum period? How did free
persons of color fit into southern society?