THE OLD SOUTH & SLAVERY 1820-1860 A10Q 7.10.30 THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH THE OLD SOUTH & SLAVERY 1820-1860 A10Q 7.10.30
Essential Question To what degree was the South developing as a distinctively different region from the rest of the United States during the period 1820 to 1860? To what degree did slavery shape life in the South during this period? (Consider political, economic, social and intellectual aspects of life in the South)
A. The Southern Economy Primarily agrarian Economic power shifted from the “upper South” to the “lower South” “Cotton Is King!” 1860 - 5 million Bales exported per year (57% of US exports) pOJER
The Agricultural Economy of the South,1860 Roark, American Promise 3e from http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/mapcentral
Changes in Cotton Production 1860 ▼ POJER 1820 ▲
Value of Cotton Exports As a Percentage of All U.S. Exports POJER
A. The Southern Economy Economic dependence on North Very slow development of industry Rudimentary financial system. Economic dependence on North Inadequate transportation system. pOJER
B. SOUTHERN SOCIETY (1850) “Slavocracy” [plantation owners, small slaveowners] 6,000,000 The “Plain Folk” [white yeoman farmers, tenant farmers,sandhillers,hill people] Black Freemen 250,000 POJER Black Slaves 3,200,000 Total US Population --> 23,000,000 [9,450,000 in the South = 40%]
Southern Society in 1860
Slave-Owning Families (1850) pojer
B. WHITE SOCIETY & CULTURE Why did many Southerners support the slave system when 75% didn’t own slaves? Was there a change in attitude re slavery? How did they justify slavery? Who did NOT support the slave system? Southern Yeoman farmer’s home Plantation House, St. Mary’s, MD (1830s)
B. WHITE SOCIETY & CULTURE 3. Defense of Slavery & White Supremacy “necessary evil” → “positive good” Legal & constitutional History Religious Better than North – “wage slaves” Black Inferiority [Among Southerners] Elevated poor whites
Southern Pro-Slavery Propaganda pojer
C. SLAVERY & SLAVE CULTURE “Peculiar Institution” Slave trade - Middle Passage Protection under law Constitution – Art IV, Sec 2 Fugitive Slave Act (1793)
US Laws Regarding Slavery U. S. Constitution: * 3/5s compromise [I.2] * fugitive slave clause [IV.2] 1793 --> Fugitive Slave Act. 1850 --> stronger Fugitive Slave Act.
Paths of the Internal Slave Trade http://www.wadsworth.com/history_d/templates/student_resources/0534593550_carroll/maps/carrollmaps.html
C. SLAVERY & SLAVE CULTURE 4. Slave Life & Culture Black Christianity [Baptists or Methodists]: * more emotional worship services; negro spirituals. Nuclear family with extended kin links, where possible. Importance of music in their lives. [esp.spirituals]. Slave codes Resistance Nat Turner “Sambo” Divine, America Past & Present Slave Rebellions and Uprisings, 1800-1831
Slave Cabin and Occupants Near Eufala, Barbour County, Alabama
Sources Library of Congress – Prints and Photographs Division Online Catalog - http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/pphome.html Library of Congress – African Mosaic - http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam015.html Africans in America – PBS - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/rb_index_hd.html