The South and the
Slavery Controversy
1793 - 1860
King Cotton
 Early years of slavery
– Southern statesmen talked openly of freeing their slaves
& predicted slavery would gradually die out
 Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin –1793
– Short-stapled cotton
– Cotton became the dominant southern crop
– “slaves were chained to the gin, and the
planters were chained to the slaves”
– Increased the demand for slaves
Slaves ginning cotton
Slaves ginning cotton
The invention of the cotton gin and the
spread of cotton agriculture throughout
the American south created an enormous
new demand for slave workers and
changed the nature of their work. A
handful of slaves could process large
amounts of fiber using the revolutionary
new machine, but it took armies of field
workers to produce the raw cotton.
(Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cotton is King
 Northern shippers reaped profits from the cotton
trade
– Prosperity of both North & South rested on slavery
 Cotton counted for half the value of all American
exports after 1840
– South produced more than ½ of the world’s cotton
supply
 Britain received about 75% of their cotton from
the South
– Even foreign nations were held in partial bondage
Impact for Foreign Nations
 If war broke out between North & South:
– Northern warships would cut off the outflow of cotton
– British factories would close
– Starving mobs would force London gov’t to break the
blockade
– South would triumph
The Planter “Aristocracy”
 Oligarchy
– heavily influenced by planter aristocracy
 1850
– 1,733 families owned more than 100 slaves each
– This group provided the political & social leadership of
the South and the nation
 Life for the aristocracy
– Educated their children in the best schools
– Leisure for study and reflection
• Felt a sense of obligation to serve the public
Life in the South
 Public education was hampered
– Rich planters sent their children to private institutions
 Medievalism – example: jousting tournaments
 Southern women
– Commanded the household staff – mostly female slaves
– Virtually no slaveholding woman believed in
abolitionism
Virginia Planter's Family by August Köllner, 1845
Virginia Planter's Family by August Köllner, 1845
As August Köllner's 1845 painting shows, a southern woman was expected to be a
loving and subservient wife to her plantation husband, but she was also expected to
be a harsh mistress toward her black servants. ("Virginia Planters Family" by A.
Kollner, 1845. Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Nurse and charge
Nurse and charge
Slavery did not prevent white children
and their slave nurses from forming
attachments to each other. (Valentine
Museum, Cook Collection)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cotton & the Land
 Excessive cultivation / “land butchery”
– Result: many moved to the West & Northwest
 Smaller land owners sold land to more prosperous
neighbors
– Big got bigger & the small got smaller
 Financial instability
– Many were in debt – too much land & slaves
– Slaves were costly – food, injury, death
 Dependence on a one-crop economy
– Price levels varied
– Discouraged diversification of agriculture &
manufacturing
Problems with Cotton
 Many Southerners resented watching the North
grow fat at their expense
– Commissions & interest to northern
middlemen, bankers, agents, & shippers
 Cotton repelled large-scale European immigration
– Discouraged by the competition of slave labor
– High cost of land
– European ignorance of cotton farming
– * White South became the most AngloSaxon section of the nation*
Slaveowning Families 1850
 1,733 owned 100 or more slaves
 6,196 owned 50-99 slaves
 29,733 owned 20-49 slaves
 54,595 owned 10-19 slaves
 80,765 owned 5-9 slaves
 105,683 owned 2-4 slaves
 68,820 owned 1 slave each
p. 353
The White Majority
 Only ¼ of white southerners owned slaves or
belonged to a slave-owning family
 Small slaveowners - majority of the masters
– Typically small farmers
– Lived in modest farmhouses & sweated beside slaves in
the fields
 ¾ of white southerners owned NO slaves
– 6.1 million in 1860
– Redneck / subsistence farmers
• raised corn & hogs
– Lived isolated lives
White Majority conti
 Poor white trash/ hillbillies
– Nonslaveholding
– Least prosperous
 Whites without slaves were stoutest defenders of
the slave system
– Hope of buying a slave – “American Dream”
– Pride in their presumed racial superiority
– *Logic of economics join with the
illogic of racism*
White Majority conti
 Mountain whites
– Appalachian mountains – western VA to northern GA &
Alabama
– Independent farmers
– Little in common with other whites
– Hated planters & slavery
– Most were Unionists
in the Civil War
Free Blacks
 South’s Free Blacks – 250,000 by 1860
 Many were mulattos
– Usually children of white planters & his black mistress
 Some had purchased their freedom
– Labor after hours
 Many owned property – especially in New Orleans
 Some even owned slaves
Free Blacks conti
 “Third Race”
– Prohibited from working certain occupations
– Forbidden to testify against whites in court
– Vulnerable to being highjacked back into slavery
– Were resented & detested by defenders of slavery
– Several states forbade their entrance
– Denied the right to vote
– Barred from public school
Prejudices in the North
 Northern blacks - hated by Irish immigrants
– competition for menial jobs
 Fear of slavery spreading into the new territories:
– Grew out of race prejudice not humanitarianism
 Fredrick Douglas
– Several times mobbed & beaten by people in the North
Plantation Slavery
 Slaves were a major investment
 Primary source of wealth / Investment
– $2 billion of southern capitol in 1860
– $1,800 prime field hand by 1860
 1860 – 4 million slaves
 African slave trade ended in 1808
– Smuggling began/ Punishable by death
 Natural reproduction
– Women who bore 13+ children
were prized
Slavery conti
 1860 – Deep South states owned about ½ of all
slaves- (Map p. 365)
– SC, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, & Louisiana
 Slave auctions
– Brutal – families were separated
 Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave by Henry Byam Martin, 1833
The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave by Henry Byam Martin, 1833
White southerners could not escape the fact that much of the Western world loathed
their "peculiar institution." In 1833, when a Canadian sketched this Charleston slave
auction, Britain abolished slavery in the West Indies. (National Archives of Canada)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Life Under the Lash
 Slaveowners romanticized about their happy slaves
 Conditions for slaves
– Varied greatly
– Hard work, ignorance, & oppression
– Dawn to dusk in the fields under the eye of an overseer
– No civil or political rights
– Minimal protection from murder or usually cruel
punishment – laws were difficult to enforce
• Some states prevented the sale of a slave under the age of 10
– Floggings were common
• However, the typical planter had too much invested in their
slave to beat too severally or too often
Torture Mask, woodcut, 1807
Torture Mask, woodcut, 1807
The laws of southern states had long
stipulated that masters could use
whatever means they deemed necessary
to prevent slave runaways and insolence.
In the early 1800s, some planters
adopted this so-called restraining mask
to punish slaves. (Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Life of Slaves conti
 Most lived in the Deep South
– Slaves- 75% of population in some places
 Majority lived on larger plantations – 20+
– Developed communities
 Managed to sustain family life
– Most were raised with both parents
 Distinctive African American culture
– Religious practices
– Mix of Christian & African elements
• Emphasized captivity of the Israelites
The Burdens of Bondage
 Degrading
 Deprived of dignity & sense of responsibility
 Denied an education
– Reading brought ideas, & ideas brought discontent
– Illegal in most states
 No chance at the “American Dream”
The Power of the Slaves
 Slaves often slowed the pace of their labor to the
barest minimum that would spare them the lash
– Myth of black “laziness”
 Stole food from the “big house”
 Sabotaged equipment
 Occasionally poisoned master’s food
 Runaway
– Often looking for
separated family
members
Slave Rebellions
 1800 – Gabriel in Richmond, VA
– Informers told of plot
– Leaders were hanged
 1822 – Denmark Vesey in Charleston, SC
– Free blacks & slaves
– 30 hanged
 1831 – Nat Turner in Hampton County, VA
– Visionary preacher
– Led uprising that slaughtered
about 60 Virginians
– Received death penalty
Early Abolitionism
 Abolitionism first sprang up during the Revolution
– Quakers
 American Colonization Society – 1817
– Send former slaves back to Africa
– Republic of Liberia – 1822
• Capitol – Monrovia (Pres. Monroe)
• 15,000 freed blacks were transported
– Problem – by now they were
native-born African Americans
– Supported by Lincoln
Abolitionism 1830s
 1833 – Great Britain freed their slaves in the West
Indies
 Second Great Awakening – slavery view as a sin
 Theodore Dwight Weld
– 1834 - organized an 18 day debate on slavery at Lane
Theological Seminary
– He & his fellow “Lane Rebels” fanned out across the
Old Northwest preaching the antislavery gospel
– Pamphlet - American Slavery As It Is
• Influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe
Radical Abolitionism
 William Lloyd Garrison
– Jan. 1, 1831 published the 1st issue of The Liberator
– Proclaimed that under no circumstances would he
tolerate slavery
 The Liberator
– Antislavery newspaper
– Published in Boston
– Triggered a 30 year war of words
Abolitionists
 American Anti-Slavery Society
– Founded in 1833 by Garrison & others
 Wendell Phillips
– Would eat no sugar cane or wear cotton cloth
 David Walker
– Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829)
 Sojourner Truth
– Ex-slave
– fought for women’s rights & abolitionism
 Martin Delaney
– Looked at recolonization
Fredrick Douglass
 Greatest of the black abolitionists
 Escaped from slavery in 1838
 Lectured widely
 Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass
Radical Ideas
 Garrison proposed that the North secede from the
“wicked” south
– Publicly burned a copy of the constitution – “covenant
with the devil”
Fredrick Douglass &
Other Abolitionists
 Looked to politics to help end slavery
 Backed
– Liberty Party (1840)
– Free Soil Party (1848)
– Republican Party (1850s)
 Most abolitionists, including Garrison, supported a
fratricidal war (fighting within one’s society) as
the price of emancipation.
The South Lashes Back
 1820s – Most antislavery societies were located
in the South
 1830s – white southern abolitionism was
silenced / VA – last major debate over slavery
– Slave codes were strengthened
– Moved to prohibit emancipation of any kind,
voluntary or compensated
– Nat Turner’s Rebellion – caused massive fear in the
South
• GA offered $5,000 reward for Garrison’s arrest &
conviction
– Nullification Crisis of 1832
South Reponses
 Launched a massive defense of slavery
– “positive good”
– Slavery was supported in the Bible & Aristotle
– It was good for Africans – they were now civilized
– Christianity was taught
– Contrasted the “happy” lot of their “servants” with that
of the overworked northern wage slaves
• Blacks worked in the fresh air
• Taken care of when they were old
Problems Result
 Problems in Congress
– Piles of petitions poured into Congress
from antislavery reformers
– Southerners wanted a gag resolution
• Tabled without discussion
 1835 – Mob looted the post office in Charleston
– Washington ordered that all postmasters destroy all
abolitionists material & arrest those who didn’t comply
The Abolitionist Impact
in the North
 North had an economic stake in slavery
– Southern planters owed northern banks money
– New England textile mills depended on southern cotton
 North did not view abolitionists in a positive light
Attacks on Abolitionists
 1834 – Lewis Tappan
– gang broke into his NY house & demolished its interior
while crowd cheered
 1835 – William Lloyd Garrison
– dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope around
his neck
 1837 – Elijah Lovejoy
– his printing press was destroyed 4 times
– he was eventually killed by a mob
• became a martyr
Elijah Lovejoy’s Warehouse