Chapter 14 Section 3 & 4 “Cotton Kingdom in the South”

The Cotton Kingdom Cotton was so profitable, that the south did not think it needed to invest in factories. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. It was a simple machine that separated the seeds from cotton. It had an enormous effect on the south. By 1850, southern planters were growing over 2 million bales of cotton. Planters learned that if they planted on the same land year after year, the soil would ware out. This caused planters to move westward in search of new land. All cotton producing land was known as the cotton kingdom.

Slavery Spreads Across the South As cotton spread across the south, so did slavery. Cotton would be cleaned by the cotton gin, but it still had to be picked and planted by hand. Slaves got no profit from the land. They were little more than property. The money made on the plantation was used to buy more slaves and more land. The south had some industry(factories) but not a lot. As long as cotton remained king, southerners believed they could look to the future with confidence.

Real Slavery Statistics The south is often seen as the land of big plantations worked by hundreds of slaves. These did exist, however most white southerners were not rich planters. In fact, most whites owned no slaves at all!!! One out of thirty families owned twenty slaves, and less than one percent of the families in the south owned fifty or more slaves. These people were known as the cottonocracy because they ruled the south. These rich planters often became southern political leaders, often hiring overseers to run the day-to-day affairs of the plantation. About 75% of southern whites owned small farms and, if they were lucky, might have owned one or two slaves. These families worked in the fields with their slaves.

Free Blacks in the South The south was home to nearly 200,000 free African Americans. These people bought or were given their freedom, and were able to make a life for themselves. Whites in the south did not like free blacks living their. Whites had been justifying slavery by saying that black people couldn’t take care of themselves. Free African Americans proved that theory wrong.

Slave Codes By 1860, enslaved African Americans made up 1/3 of the southern population. With such a big population, the south needed a way to control the slaves. They did this through slave codes. These were laws that were aimed at keeping slaves from running away or rebelling. Under slave codes, slaves were forbidden to gather in groups of more than three. They could not leave their owners land without a pass. They could not own a gun. Slave codes even made it a crime for slaves to learn how to read and write. There were some slave codes that protected slaves from abuse, but slaves didn’t have the right to testify in court. So what good are those laws? The only real protection that slaves had was that owners looked at their slaves as valuable property.

A Hard Life Needless to say, life was hard for slaves. They worked hard, 16 hour days. Many times, the only things that slaves had, their families, were torn apart. Sometimes husbands and wives would be sold to different plantations. Other times children would be separated from their parents. Many times, plantations became one big family where everyone helped raise the children. Many slaves found their comfort in Christianity. They liked stories like the Hebrews escaping slavery. Slaves did resist slavery. Most just did things around the farm: they worked slowly, they broke tools, they destroyed crops and stole food. There were some violent rebellions too. A slave named Nat Turner led a group of slaves through the south killing 57 whites. He and his followers were caught and hanged. Revolts were rare, however. Since whites were cautious and well armed, a revolt by African Americans had almost no chance of success.