1. THE OLD SOUTH & SLAVERY 1820-1860 A10Q 7.10.30
THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH
THE OLD SOUTH & SLAVERY
A10Q

2. 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)

3. A. The Southern Economy Primarily agrarian
Economic power shifted from the “upper South” to the “lower South”
“Cotton Is King!”
million Bales exported per year (57% of US exports)
pOJER

4. The Agricultural Economy of the South,1860
Roark, American Promise 3e from

5. Changes in Cotton Production
1860 ▼
POJER
1820 ▲

6. Value of Cotton Exports As a Percentage of All U.S. Exports
POJER

7. A. The Southern Economy Economic dependence on North
Very slow development of industry
Rudimentary financial system.
Economic dependence on North
Inadequate transportation system.
pOJER

8. 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%]

9. Southern Society in 1860

10. Slave-Owning Families (1850)
pojer

11. 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)

12. 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

13. Southern Pro-Slavery Propaganda
pojer

14. C. SLAVERY & SLAVE CULTURE
“Peculiar Institution”
Slave trade - Middle Passage
Protection under law
Constitution – Art IV, Sec 2
Fugitive Slave Act (1793)

15. US Laws Regarding Slavery
U. S. Constitution: * 3/5s compromise [I.2] * fugitive slave clause [IV.2]
> Fugitive Slave Act.
> stronger Fugitive Slave Act.

16. Paths of the Internal Slave Trade

17. 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,

18. Slave Cabin and Occupants Near Eufala, Barbour County, Alabama

20. Sources
Library of Congress – Prints and Photographs Division Online Catalog -
Library of Congress – African Mosaic -
Africans in America – PBS -