1. Slavery and Southern Economy

2. Divergent Paths
Due to the “Market Revolution”, the North developed an economic centered on industry, commerce and wage laborers
Thanks to “King Cotton”, the South grew more and more to rely on slave labor to underpin its way of life

3. “KING COTTON”
Invention of Cotton Gin and Louisiana Purchase increased cotton production
Increased demand for slaves – 1.5 million by 1820, despite outlawing slave trade
Southern economy increasingly dependent on crop
An engraving from Harper's Magazine from 1869 showing the first cotton gin

4. Cotton Gin

6. Supply and Demand
Slave boundary grew from Georgia to Texas between 1790 and 1860
At first demand met through legal importation, then smuggling
Finally was met by the surplus from the Chesapeake region

7. Slave Migration
Slave Population Density
Slave Population Density

8. Slave Migration

9. I. Southern Economy and Society
A. Once cotton became very profitable, the demand for slave labor skyrocketed B. Social classes became more rigidly defined: 1. Planters – small % of population owned large plantations 2. Yeoman farmers – average family farmers; majority of white pop. 3. Rural poor – lived on unfertile land 4. African Americans – 93% of blacks were enslaved in South C. Most southerners owned no slaves, but it was built into southern society, economy, and culture.

10. The Domestic Slave Trade
Profitable to both upper and lower south states
Reinforced status as property
Destroyed 25 percent of slave marriages
White southerners continued to believe in “paternalistic” aspect of slavery

11. The Planter Elite About 3,000 owned more than 100 slaves
Believed in republican aristocracy
In the Chesapeake region slave ownership was more diffused
In the Cotton South of Alabama and Mississippi, second group of planters : market-driven entrepreneurs

12. Non-Slave Owning Whites
The percentage of white families who owned slaves decreased over time
“Smallholders” worked alongside their slaves
Propertyless whites garnered little respect, still had to serve in militias
Gained only psychological satisfaction they ranked above blacks
“In a slave country, every free man is an aristocrat”

13. Slavery A. Field slaves were organized two different ways:
1. Task system – each slave completed a specific job each day
2. Gang system – work gangs plowed and planted from sunup-sundown
B. House servants lived much differently than the field hands
C. Slave codes prohibited Blacks from owning property, leaving slaveholder’s premises, possessing firearms, testify against whites, and learning to read/write

14. The Proslavery Argument
Peculiar Institution – A term that John C. Calhoun coined to describe Southern slavery
In Calhoun’s view, slavery was not “an evil” or a cause of shame but rather “a good—a positive good” to be championed.

15. Image 10.7: “Slavery As It Exists in America”
This proslavery cartoon portrays slaves as happy and well cared for by masters who are benign patriarchs.

16. III. Coping with Enslavement
A. African American culture began developing 1. sang songs (spirituals), told folktales, blended Christianity with African religious traditions, developed their own vernacular (style of language) B. Resisted their owners: 1. Slowed down their work 2. Broke tools and machinery 3. Set fire to barns and houses 4. Ran away C. Some organized revolts (i.e., Gabrielle, Vesey, Nat Turner)

17. Nat Turner’s Rebellion – A 1831 slave uprising in Virginia led by Nat Turner that shocked many in the South and led to a host of new repressive measures against slaves