W. E.B. DuBois “What did it mean to be a slave? It is hard to imagine. We think of oppression beyond all conception: cruelty, degradation, whipping and starvation, the absolute negation of human rights. Or on the contrary, we might think about the ordinary worker the world over today (he meant 1935) slaving 10, 12 or 14 hours a day with not enough to eat, compelled by his physical necessities to do this and not to do that, curtailed in his movements and his possibilities; and we say too, that a “free worker” is a slave, and slavery is merely a matter of name. But there was a real meaning to slavery in 1863 different than what we may apply to laborer today. It was in part psychological – the enforced feeling of personal inferiority, the calling of another master, the standing with hat in hand. It was the helplessness.. It was the defenselessness of family life. It was the submergence below the arbitrary will of any sort of individual. And in these vital aspects, it was without a doubt worse.”

SLAVERY IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA 1818: The year of the birth of Frederick Douglass, slavery was already an old institution in America. Two centuries had passed since the first 20 Africans landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship. After the abolition of slavery in the North, slavery had become the “peculiar institution” of the South – that is, an institution unique to Southern society.

SLAVERY IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA Despite the hopes of some of the Founding Fathers that slavery might die out, in fact the institution survived the crisis of the American Revolution and rapidly expanded westward. On the eve of the Civil War, the slave population had risen to 4 million, its rate of natural increase more than making up for the prohibition in 1808 of further slave imports from Africa.

What do you know about slavery in the antebellum period?

Why was slavery so important to the South? Economy: “Cotton is King” : 1793 Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin – allowing quick separation of the cotton from the seed. About ¾ of the world’s cotton supply came from the Southern USA. By 1830, Cotton had become the most important American export. On the eve of the Civil War, it represented well over ½ the total of American exports. 1860: The economic investment represented by the slave population exceeded the value of the nation’s factories, railroads, and banks combined Culture: Planter elite, poor aspired to be like them. Whites liked the superiority over blacks. Necessary to avoid a race war: The threat of free blacks: Nat Turner Revolt 1831: 55 whites, mainly women and children, were killed. Social order: Blacks were inferior. Argued the paternal aspects of slavery – Black people couldn’t survive without slavery. Bible used to justify slavery.

Why did slavery become an issue of contention? Second Awakening: religious revival leading to the questioning of the morality of slavery. Encouraged Americans to do battle with the sins of the world. Abolitionists: William Lloyd Garrison, in 1831 launched the abolitionist journal The Liberator. Convinced slavery was a sin – immediate abolition. Impact on women Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin published in weekly instalments. Huge impact on northerners. Work of freed slaves: Frederick Douglass published his Narrative. Powerful speaker about the injustices of slavery. The threat of Slave Power: the idea that the South intended to spread slavery to the new territories. Increasing their influence on federal government – already inflated by the 3/5 Compromise. Growth of the Republican Party: against Slave Power.

Was slavery the root of all conflict? Research slavery in the antebellum period – the internet and your Farmer book will give you an overview. Then dig deeper (use articles in folder) – what was it about the ‘Peculiar institution’ that angered the North? How well supported was the abolitionist movement? Did all people opposed to slavery want immediate abolition? Remember to complete your resource record!!