1. The South’s Peculiar Institution
John Sacher
University of Central Florida

2. How do we define the South?

3. Where did slaves live?

4. Slave Population—1860 Slaves Total Population Slave %
Virginia , ,596, %
Georgia , ,057,286 44%
Mississippi 436, , %
Alabama , ,201 45%
South Carolina 402, ,708 57%
Louisiana 331, ,002 47%
North Carolina 331, ,622 33%
Tennessee 275,719 1,109,801 25%
Kentucky 225,483 1,155,684 20%
Texas 182, ,215 30%
Missouri ,931 1,182,012 10%
Arkansas 111, ,450 26%
Maryland 87, ,049 13%
Florida 61, ,424 44%
Delaware 1, , %

5. Slave Population—1860 Slaves Total Population Slave %
South Carolina 402, ,708 57%
Mississippi 436, , %
Louisiana 331, ,002 47%
Alabama , ,201 45%
Georgia , ,057,286 44%
Florida 61, ,424 44%
North Carolina 331, ,622 33%
Virginia , ,596, %
Texas 182, ,215 30%
Arkansas , ,450 26%
Tennessee 275,719 1,109,801 25%
Kentucky 225,483 1,155,684 20%
Maryland 87, ,049 13%
Missouri ,931 1,182,012 10%
Delaware 1, , % 5

6. Some Figures:
In 1860, in the slave states, there were 8 million whites who owned 4 million slaves.
The number of slaveholders in 1860—approx. 387,000
In other words, only approximately 5% of all whites owned slaves.
Wait a second, only 5% of all whites living in slave states owned slaves, that doesn’t sound right….

7. How many families owned slaves? (1860)
STATE: SLAVEHOLDERS TOTAL FAMILIES PCT
MISSISSIPPI
SOUTH CAROLINA
GEORGIA
ALABAMA
FLORIDA
LOUISIANA
TEXAS
NORTH CAROLINA
VIRGINIA
TENNESSEE
ARKANSAS
Total

8. How Many People Owned Slaves?

9. How Many Slaves Did They Own?

10. Slave Owning—1860 Number of Slaves Percent of Owners >100 .6%
> % % % % % %

11. Cotton 4.5 million bales (1860)

12. Cotton Gin

13. Slave Crops

14. Strikingly Similar . . .

15. Size of Southern Crops Tobacco 1849 106 million lbs.
Rice million lbs.
million lbs.
Sugar $60 million
$180 million
Cotton 2.5 million bales to 4.5 million bales

16. PLANTATION ORGANIZATION
A. Gang System
Owner—Planter (owns 20+ slaves)
Overseer—Day-to-day authority figure
Driver—Slave Foreman
Field Hands—Men and women
B. Task System

17. Task System

18. Plantation Layout

19. Where did slaves work? They worked in . . .
Cotton percent
Tobacco percent
Sugar/rice/hemp percent
Servant positions percent
Trades/industry percent

20. Tredegar Iron Works

21. Slave Codes

22. The Whip

23. The Bible and Slavery

24. Josiah Nott, Types of Mankind

25. Good Society Argument

26. Slave Prices

27. The Second Middle Passage

28. Slave Coffle

29. Mary Chesnut South Carolina Plantation Mistress
“Every lady tells you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household, but those in her own she seems to think drop from the clouds, or pretends so to think."