APUSH U4 PT.3

Antebellum South & Culture (Cha 11)

Eli Whitney / Cotton Gin

Solved the problem of process, demand for cotton increase rapidly in Britain/NE → SC, GA, AL, MS production, cotton = 2/3 of all total export trade

Growth of Cotton in Deep South

Profits drew settlers to lower South (wealthy planters/small slaveholders/slaveless farmers) , 1840-1860 hundreds of thousands of slaves from upper south to lower South

Economic & Social of S

Economy:

* agrarian
* Power shift from upper → Lower South
* 2nd middle passage
* rise of “King Cotton” & cotton gin
* felt slaves added to economic development/efficient system for cotton production
* slow development of industrialization

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Society:

* Planter Class - luxury
* Cult of honor: men defend women (men dominant)
* Plain Folk: typical farmer - owned a few slaves
* “Hill People” - subsistence agriculture
* Poor whites

Southern social Classes

Planter Class plantation owners/slave owners → “Plain Folk” (white yeomen farmers)" → Black Freemen → enslaved Africans

Plantation System / Slavery

A system of agricultural production based on large-scale land ownership and the exploitation of labor and the environment, focused on production of cash crops and utilized slave labor

Slave culture

Religion: Christians (developed own sometimes incorporating African religion), often prayed for freedom

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Language/Music: retained own language (created common “Pidgin), slave music (rooted in African music), Slave Spirituals

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Family: Bore children at younger ages, slave marriages, often separated, paternalism (between slave and master)

Slave resistance / rebellions

Resistance: running away, refusal to work hard, losing/breaking tools, performing tasks improperly, harming themselves

Rebellions : Nat Turner’s rebellion (killed white people)

Fitzhugh & Hammond

Fitzhugh: Asserted that black slaves of the south were the happiest and somewhat the freest people because the responsibility for their care is the concern of their masters. Said south is better for their slaves than the north. Argued that southern masters and their slaves were bound together.

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Hammond: South Carolina congressman, delivered address to congress where he denied slavery was evil, said it produced the best organization of society that ever existed.

Free Labor v. Slave Labor system

Free Labor: situations where laborers offer skills ,services, and time for a minimal amt of money/no payments

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slave labor: forcing laborers to provide their skills/time in the production of goods/services against their will w/no payments

Abolitionists vs defenders of slavery

Abolitionists: expose slavery for brutal, dehumanizing institution

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Defenders: tried to depict it as a benevolent and paternalistic system