1. Plantations and Slavery

2. The Cotton Boom Industrial Revolution
-increased # of goods being produced
-increased demand for raw materials
Cotton growers wanted to meet this demand.

3. The Cotton Gin Cotton gin Eli Whitney
Machine that made cleaning seeds from cotton faster
1Lb/day Lbs/day
Eli Whitney
Inventor of the cotton gin.

4. Slavery Expands 1790-1860 cotton production increased x 1,000
Slaves/South raised millions of bales of cotton for textile mills.
Cotton production ; Demand for Slavery
1808: illegal to import Africans as slaves
Birth rate of slaves already in U.S. grew
slave pop. In south
more than doubled

5. Southern Support for Slavery
1840: 1/3 white families owned slaves
1/10th large plantations w/ 20+slaves
Most southern farmers owned few/no slaves
Hoped to buy slaves someday 
Raise more cotton  earn more money

6. African Americans in the South Varied Conditions
½ slaves worked on plantations
Others: servants, factory hands, day laborers
Could be cruel, beat, etc.
5% African Americans free
Born free
Freed by owner
Bought freedom
Problems
Not allowed to vote, be educated
Employers refused to hire them
Possibility of being captured/sold into slavery

7. Families Under Slavery
members could be sold away from one another
mothers/children could be separated
had children, even tho they might be taken away

8. Slave Rebellions
Extreme form of resistance to slavery – armed rebellion
Leaders/followers hanged
Nat Turner
Leader of an 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia
Effects
Fear in south
Whites killed 200 blacks in revenge
Considered ending slavery
Passed laws limiting freedoms of ALL blacks

9. A Common Culture Spirituals- religious folk songs
Voiced desire of freedom
Contained coded messages – plan of escape, tell of owners early return

10. Describe the daily life and culture of African Americans in the South in the mid 1800s.