1. Adapted from: Ms. Susan M. Pojer Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY
The
Antebellum
South
Adapted from: Ms. Susan M. Pojer Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY

2. Early Emancipation in the North

3. Missouri Compromise, 1820

4. Antebellum
Southern
Society

5. Characteristics of the Antebellum South
Primarily agrarian.
Economic power shifted from the “upper South” to the “lower South.”
“Cotton Is King!” * > 5 mil. bales a yr (57% of total US exports).
Very slow development of industrialization.
Rudimentary financial system.
Inadequate transportation system.

6. Southern Society (1850) “Slavocracy” [plantation owners]
6,000,000
The “Plain Folk” [white yeoman farmers]
Black Freemen
250,000
Black Slaves 3,200,000
Total US Population --> 23,000,000 [9,250,000 in the South = 40%]

7. Southern Population

8. Antebellum
Southern
Economy

9. Graniteville Textile Co.
Founded in 1845, it was the South’s first attempt at industrialization in Richmond, VA

10. Southern Agriculture

11. Slaves Picking Cotton on a Mississippi Plantation

12. Slaves Using the Cotton Gin

13. Changes in Cotton Production
1820
1860

14. Value of Cotton Exports As % of All US Exports

15. Slaves Working in a Sugar-Boiling House, 1823

16. The South's
"Peculiar
Institution"

17. Southern Pro-Slavery Propaganda

18. Getting Here: the Middle Passage

19. Slave Auction Notice, 1823

20. Slave Auction: Charleston, SC-1856

21. Slave Accoutrements
Slave Master Brands
Slave muzzle

22. Slave Accoutrements

23. Slave Accoutrements
Slave leg irons
Slave tag, SC
Slave shoes

24. Slave Branding
amphlet

25. On Submissiveness
How did slave owners keep their slaves from escaping?
Culture of keeping blacks submissive and in “their” place
GOAL --> raise the “exit cost.”
* Slave patrols.
* Southern Black Codes.
* Cut off a toe or a foot.

26. Slave
Resistance
&
Uprisings

27. Slave Resistance Refusal to work hard. Isolated acts of sabotage.
Escape via the Underground Railroad.

28. Runaway Slave Ads

29. Quilt Patterns as Secret Messages
The Monkey Wrench pattern, on the left, alerted escapees to gather up tools and prepare to flee; the Drunkard Path design, on the right, warned escapees not to follow a straight route.

30. Slave Rebellions Throughout the Americas

31. Slave Rebellions in the Antebellum South
Gabriel Prosser 1800
1822

32. Slave Rebellions in the Antebellum South: Nat Turner, 1831

33. Antebellum
Southern
Plantation Life

34. Slave-Owning Population (1850)

35. Slave-Owning Families (1850)

36. Slaves posing in front of their cabin on a Southern plantation.

37. Tara – Plantation Reality or Myth?
Hollywood’s Version?

38. A Real Georgia Plantation

39. Scarlet and Mammie (Hollywood Again!)

40. A Real Mammie & Her Charge

41. The Southern “Belle”

42. A Slave Family

43. Five Generations of Slaves

44. The
Legacy of
Slavery

45. The Culture of Slavery
We don’t have primary sources from slaves on slave life, but we can document their experience by going through their cultural production.
Black Christianity [Baptists or Methodists]: * more emotional worship services. * negro spirituals.
“Pidgin” or Gullah languages.
Nuclear family with extended kin links, where possible.
Importance of music in their lives. [esp. spirituals].

46. African American History
Black have contributed to this country economically & culturally
Have fought wars even when they themselves lacked equality
Would America have been America without the negro?
Not only are they not acknowledged, but discriminated against.
*notes from Politics of Black Culture taught by Professor Thomas Holt, UChicago