Black and White Workers in Ante-bellum America
ROBERT SMALLS (1839 – 1915) -Stole the Confederate USS Planter SC House of Representatives During Reconstruction
SLAVE SOCIETY -COERCION -VIOLENCE -SEXUAL EXPLOITATION -SLAVE PATROLS -LAWS CONTROLLING SLAVE AND BLACK BEHAVIOR
MARKET REVOLUTION 1812 – Raw Materials from South, Rural North and West -Manufacturing in North -Trans-Continental Transportation -Creation of Markets
THE COTTON KINGDOM 1830: South = 300,000 bales of cotton per year 1860: South = 5 million bales of cotton per year 75% of world’s cotton supply 4 million slaves, more than all other slave societies combined
TASK SYSTEM OF SLAVE LABOR -Individual plots of land or type of crop -Foodstuffs (sweet potatoes, greens) -Blacks trade / barter with poor whites -pre-Revolution: interracial farm laborers – 1865: all-black slave labor
GANG SYSTEM OF SLAVE LABOR -Plantation Cultivation: Set Amount per day -Cash Crops (cotton, sugar, rice) -Blacks work independently of whites, white overseer
“I would do my best to hasten the day when the color of the skin would be no barrier to equal school rights.” William C. Nell, 1855
ABIEL SMITH SCHOOL (1835 – 1855)
DRED SCOTT DECISION 1857 Dred Scott (c – 1858) Harriett Scott (d. 1873) -Scott enslaved to the Blow family in VA, sold to Dr. John Emerson of MO -1836: Scott “marries” Harriett; they have two children -1842: John Emerson marries Irene Sanford : John Emerson dies; his estate is handled by John Sanford -1849: After offering Irene Sanford $300 for his freedom, he sues for his freedom in court
Chief Justice Robert Brook Taney “A Negro has no rights that a White Man is Bound to Respect” -African-Americans are Not Citizens -Slavery can exist wherever slaves are brought as property - Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional - Citizenship is reserved for white men
AME Church, 1816 “God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother” -African Free Schools - Freedom’s Journal, New England Anti-Slavery Society - American Anti-Slavery Society - Legal Challenge to White Supremacy Rev. Richard Allen (1760 – 1831) Charles Lenox Remond (1810 – 1873)
“I would do my best to hasten the day when the color of the skin would be no barrier to equal school rights.” William C. Nell, 1855
“We went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.” (Amos Adams Lawrence, former Conscience Whig, on the Burns affair.)